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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23186293">(Late) Summer of Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drusilla_951/pseuds/Drusilla_951'>Drusilla_951</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The D. I.'s Daughter [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Endeavour (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Case Fic (sort of), Canon Endeavour Morse Whump - Aftermath, Developing Relationship, Embedded Images, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Endeavour Morse Whump, Episode Related, Episode: s04e04 Harvest, F/M, Family, Female Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Marriage Proposal, Romance, Tarot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:41:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,393</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23186293</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drusilla_951/pseuds/Drusilla_951</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>September 1967. Joan is now dating Morse. But the world—and themselves—may be conspiring against any lasting happiness.</p><p>An AU retelling of <i>Harvest</i> from Joan’s POV. Sequel to <i><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20714684/chapters/49209404">Dal Segno al Coda</a></i>, please read it first (or read the spoilers in the Author’s Notes!)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Endeavour Morse &amp; Fred Thursday, Endeavour Morse/Joan Thursday, Joan Thursday &amp; Dorothea Frazil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The D. I.'s Daughter [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1590691</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>97</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Fool</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/gifts">AstridContraMundum</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mud_Lark/gifts">Mud_Lark</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic would not be online without my <b>awesome Betas</b>: My deepest thanks to <b>Mud_Lark</b> for her assistance and comments which improved this fic a thousand times. All my gratitude goes to my precious Brit-picker <b>Penny (TimeLord98)</b> who rectified so meticulously all my punctuation mistakes and edited this fic into proper 1960s British English, and to <b>AstridContraMundum</b> who also did a stellar job of Beta-ing my nefarious murders of English (commas, typos, and outlandish wording).</p><p>All the standard <b>disclaimers</b> apply: <i>Endeavour</i> doesn’t belong to me, and I’m just borrowing it for a while. Some dialogues are Russell Lewis’.</p><p><b>What went on before:</b> All you need to know is that Joan didn’t leave Oxford after the Wessex Bank heist. Morse gave Joan shelter and let her rest and recover from her ordeal, then Dorothea Frazil offered her a job as an archivist.</p><p>When I concluded the previous fic, I never thought I’d write a sequel. However, it left some unresolved questions that begged to be addressed. So, here it is! </p><p>This fic was much more difficult to write than an AU <i>Coda</i> from Joan’s POV, as the characters had a mind of their own. (Knowing Morse, it’s no surprise that he would be difficult!) Besides, not being involved in the case, Joan had to have a much more minor role in the events of <i>Harvest</i>. I do hope that her coming-of-age journey is still true to her character and that this fic will continue fittingly this AU series.</p><p>Again, <b>THANK YOU</b> for the tremendous support for my previous endeavour, with special thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginationtherapy/pseuds/imaginationtherapy">imaginationtherapy</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ec123/pseuds/Ec123">Ec123</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerd_Queen53/pseuds/Nerd_Queen53">Nerd_Queen53</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LlamasInDisguise/pseuds/LlamasInDisguise">LlamasInDisguise</a><a>, </a><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonslover98/pseuds/Dragonslover98">Dragonslover98</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/visionsofmangos/pseuds/visionsofmangos">visionsofmangoes</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustATinyTurtle/pseuds/JustATinyTurtle">JustATinyTurtle</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATwistOfLemonLyman/pseuds/ATwistOfLemonLyman">ATwistOfLemonLyman</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaStille/pseuds/LydiaStille">LydiaStille</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/jokeperalta/pseuds/jokeperalta">jokeperalta</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/YvonneSilver/pseuds/YvonneSilver">YvonneSilver</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/snydrgrl/pseuds/snydrgrl">snydrgrl</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unionjackpillow/pseuds/Unionjackpillow">Unionjackpillow</a> who encouraged me to write a sequel, however imperfect it may be.</p><p>This fic was written between September and November 2019.</p><p>Kudos, comments (constructive criticism and all) are gratefully accepted: they mean the world to this very green author!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p>‘<i>The Fool is a symbol of the soul’s journey. It stands for change.</i>’</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
‘Lovely shade of orange,’ Dorothea Frazil says with a twinkle in her eyes. ‘It goes well with the green stripe on your neckline.’</p>
<p><i>The Oxford Mail</i> editor-in-chief’s reflection suddenly appears in the mirror behind Joan’s. Joan starts; so absorbed is she on her task that she hadn’t heard her come into the living room. Her hand wobbles, and the lipstick Dorothea is speaking of skids over, drawing an overgrown mouth like a clown’s over Joan’s upper lip. She lets out an expletive, and without another word, Dorothea exhumes a hanky from her pocket and hands it to her over her shoulder.</p>
<p>‘Thanks,’ says Joan, a little flustered, as the red-orange shade smears the once-white cotton. ‘I think so, too.’</p>
<p>Concentrating, Joan begins anew, and this time, lipstick underlines her cupid’s bow perfectly. It won’t stay that way for long, she hopes. She’ll find a way to entice Morse to kiss it away before he takes her back to her actual abode. Not that it should take a considerable effort. There isn’t a part of her face that Endeavour hasn’t already explored meticulously.</p>
<p>Reflected in the mirror, Dee Frazil’s narrowed eyes note Joan’s self-assured smile, and she laughs more openly. ‘The big night, is it?’</p>
<p>Satisfied with her appearance, Joan turns around and looks at her hostess and friend with a question in her eyes.</p>
<p>The older woman takes a step back and gives her a deliberate once-over. ‘Lovely. But I already said that, didn’t I?’ Her eyes travel the length of Joan’s dress. ‘Orange dress with green and white stripes, white tights, white Mary Janes. Hmmm…you went for the overall “Summer of Love Look,” as Fanny would say.’</p>
<p>‘Wasn’t that the heading of her latest fashion column?’ Joan laughs. ‘It was…inspirational!’</p>
<p>‘Hmm. You’ve been reading the <i>Mail</i>.’</p>
<p>‘Couldn’t do otherwise! I work there, remember?’ Joan tosses back.</p>
<p>Dorothea lets out a small laugh. ‘The pretty puppy has a bite!’ She throws her jacket on the nearest armchair, then sits down and takes a cigarette from the pack placed on the side table. ‘So, is that it?’</p>
<p>‘That what?’ Joan suddenly frowns, moving closer to the mirror hung over the mantel, and wipes out an infinitesimal smear of mascara from her lid.</p>
<p>‘Your young man meeting your parents for dinner. Long overdue, don’t you think?’ </p>
<p><i>Young man</i>. The time-honoured expression still creates a sparkling, exultant glow around Joan’s heart.</p>
<p>‘Morse already knows them,’ she asserts in her best matter-of-fact voice, ‘and they know him.’</p>
<p>They do, and that’s the crux of the problem.</p>
<p>Maybe it would be easier if…things…had proceeded more smoothly. But Morse’s poisoning by a crazy groupie, then Mr. Bright’s sudden indisposition and the subsequent heavy workload piling up on Dad’s shoulders have postponed Endeavour’s…err…<i>official</i> introduction to the Thursdays. It was never the proper time for it.</p>
<p>Sure, Mum and Dad know about <i>them</i>. Morse is aware that they know, but, after much prompting, he reluctantly communicated to Joan that DI Thursday never <i>ever</i> alluded to it during their workday. Not once. Dad never mentioned it to her either, even if he was an unwitting witness to their…coming together at Crawley Hospital. And Mum once told her in a quick aside that ‘Morse needed fattening up,’ yet only her softened gaze gave more import to what would have been previously just a random observation.</p>
<p>Actually, Joan sometimes believes that she’s the only one who isn’t really conscious of their still new relationship.</p>
<p>Since their re-enactment of Sleeping Beauty’s awakening—with a lovely reverse role playing—her occasional dinners with Morse—<i>Endeavour</i>—have morphed into dates—<i>real</i> dates with <i>all</i> the trimmings!—and delightful outings, made even more pleasurable by glorious weather. Leisurely strolls and picnics on the banks of the Isis, a game of snooker punctuated with laughter—she’s truly hopeless—passionate discussions about everything under the sun from pop music to politics (Endeavour is the kind of man who wants people to agree with him wholeheartedly or not at all) and candlelit diners with blushing-inducing whispers are some of the reminiscences treasured in Joan’s heart.</p>
<p>Still, every so often, she has to pinch herself. Does she deserve him? Will it keep going on? They’ve both dodged so many near disasters that she still feels her way into their quiet happiness. It doesn’t seem…<i>permanent</i>, somehow. What could a man like Endeavour Morse find in a woman like Joan Thursday? She’s so… <i>ordinary</i> while he is the opposite: brilliant, learned, gentle, considerate—the perfect gentleman. The kind of man she never thought that she would fall in love with.</p>
<p>Today of all days, Joan fears that only the English weather is on their side. </p>
<p>Which is not saying much.</p>
<p><br/>
</p><hr/>
<p><br/>
</p>
<p>The doorbell rings, right on time. Joan checks off ‘punctuality’ in the list of Morse’s qualities, but she already knew that from all the previous occasions where she’s opened her parents’ door to invite him in.</p>
<p>This time, he has no shyness stepping through Dorothea’s doorway. Miss Frazil had made herself scarce while Joan was lost in her thoughts, and again, Joan thanks whatever God exists for gifting her with such a considerate friend. Tonight, one less moment of awkwardness is a gift she won’t look at in the mouth.</p>
<p>Looking dapper in a dark grey suit she hasn’t seen before, Morse smiles a little self-consciously at her. ‘Ready?’</p>
<p>‘Ready.’ She picks up her coat and handbag, yells, ‘Dorothea, I’m off!’ and closes the door behind her.</p>
<p>Morse looks quizzically at her brand new dress, her first purchase as an independent woman. Joan smiles mischievously and pirouettes around him. ‘Like it?’</p>
<p>‘It is…very…orange.’ He still looks surprised, but adds gently, ‘But it quite suits you.’</p>
<p>The colour even verges on blood orange under the late afternoon sun, when they leave the shade cast by Miss Frazil’s house.</p>
<p>From the corner of her eyes, she sees Morse wince involuntarily. He focuses on Joan’s animated face with resolve as she explains in a dogmatic manner, ‘That’s <i>the</i> colour to wear at the end of summer. Because of the autumnal equinox.’ Her mock-serious façade crumbles before his bafflement, and she giggles. ‘At least, I have it on good authority from <i>The Oxford Mail</i> fashion reporter.’</p>
<p>‘Autumnal equinox, “day and night, light and dark in perfect harmony,”’ utters Morse, seemingly quoting something.</p>
<p>‘Housman, is it?’</p>
<p>‘No.’ Morse’s mouth curls up deprecatingly. ‘Not trite enough for Housman. I have it on good authority,—’</p>
<p>He holds the Jag door open as Joan slips into the passenger seat. A courtesy that she’d once labelled as quaint, but which is now delightful to her. Morse closes the door, walks around the car, gets in, and doesn’t finish his sentence before switching the ignition on.</p>
<p>‘—an inhabitant of Bramford,’ he finally discloses. His eyebrows furrow. ‘Delightful village. Celtic rituals, Mother Goddess worshippers, descendants of the Pendle witches aplenty and even a free Tarot reading offer. No answers to my queries, though.’</p>
<p>Joan shakes her head disbelievingly. ‘“<i>Curiouser and curiouser</i>.” Were John Steed and Mrs. Peel around?’</p>
<p>Her joke falls flat. Morse casts a swift, puzzled glance at her, so Joan goes on, ‘What were you doing there, of all places?’</p>
<p>She doesn’t truly care about the details of the case. But knowing that he will probably offer some kind of an explanation hadn’t yet lost its thrill. Morse would never betray confidentiality, but Joan usually garners some interesting snippets of his workdays, and she now knows that thinking aloud before her is an unexpected pleasure for him. Sure, he keeps creepy crawlies and assorted shadows tightly locked away so she won’t bump into them, but it doesn’t mean that he cannot let some of her brightness beam into some of the dark corners of his daily grind. </p>
<p>Suddenly, one interesting bit stamps itself on her brain, and she exclaims, ‘Tarot reading?’</p>
<p>Joan glances at his profile. Morse is focused on the road, slowing slightly as they near a bend. His face betrays nothing, but his hands grasp the steering wheel a little more tightly than necessary.</p>
<p>‘Well, what did she tell you?’ Joan probes. Something is upsetting him. He should typically sneer at it. </p>
<p>‘She?’ he stalls. </p>
<p>
  <i>Yes, something’s decidedly bothering him. </i>
</p>
<p>‘Come on, Morse! Witches are supposedly of the female sort.’ A lock of hair falls back on Joan’s brow and she brushes it decisively away. ‘What did she say?’</p>
<p>‘She said nothing,’ he finally divulges. ‘I declined it.’</p>
<p>‘Oh! Aren’t you curious about the future?’</p>
<p>‘Isn’t what we’re supposed to ascertain tonight?’ His foot presses the brake pedal and the Jag stops in front of the Thursdays’ house.</p>
<p>Unconvinced, their daughter snorts, repeating like a mantra, ‘No, we’re having dinner at my parents.’</p>
<p>Morse turns off the car and looks into her eyes. ‘Isn’t that the same?’ There’s some edginess under his rhetorical question.</p>
<p>‘Endeavour…’ Joan’s hand rises towards his cheek, fingers reaching out for a caress. He evades it, turning his head sharply away then grins at her with a touch of contrition. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean…’</p>
<p>She feels nervous, too, but she wouldn’t admit it for all the tea in China. ‘You know them, they know you. What’s the snag?’</p>
<p>‘<i>That</i>’s it. They believe they already do.’ He breaks off, sighing. ‘At least, they already know the worst.’</p>
<p>Joan bursts out laughing. At the sound of her merriment, Morse’s brow clears. He takes Joan’s hand and raises it back to his cheekbone, completing her interrupted gesture, and her light stroke is both forgiveness and reassurance.</p>
<p>‘I was on a wild goose chase for a missing man. His glasses turned up, but the corpse was two thousand years old,’ he explains at long last, evading the sensitive topic.</p>
<p>‘Then the answer to this riddle is obvious: you’ve got a Time Traveller on your hands!’ she jokes.</p>
<p>‘It would be the lesser of two evils.’</p>
<p>‘And the other one would be?’</p>
<p>Endeavour doesn’t reply. Following his gaze, Joan lowers her hand and seizes her handbag.</p>
<p>The front door of her parents’ is now open and, in the gap, Fred Thursday’s unmistakable silhouette is waiting for them. Morse’s answer will have to wait.</p>
<p><br/>
</p><hr/>
<p><br/>
</p>
<p>Joan doesn’t know what to expect. The etiquette book of introducing boyfriends in the Thursday household is a little disused. The latest blokes stood shaking and stammering under a volley of questions fired by her Dad and never came back. But they merely came to pick her up for some dancing and a few drinks. Nothing serious; not like tonight.</p>
<p>She darts glances at the man walking at her side on the garden path. No observer could tell that it wasn’t another of his usual comings and goings from the house at an off hour from his usual pick-ups, but she knows otherwise. That’s not Morse who’s invited in; it’s Endeavour. And it bloody worries him. He’s not expected to dodge questions but to answer them.</p>
<p>When they reach the door, Win is standing next to her husband. Joan hugs them a little more tightly than she usually does. Greetings fly back and forth—Mum’s wreathed in smiles, Dad’s a little more guarded, Joan notices. Win then involuntarily proceeds to underline the unusualness of the evening when she insists that Morse call her by her nickname. He acquiesces, but the syllable goes through his mouth with some diffidence.</p>
<p>Still, drinks and dinner pass smoothly. They chew on excellent food and pleasant small talk; of all the likely innocuous topics, only the weather isn’t discussed. It’s afterwards that things get rougher.</p>
<p>They are in the living room, lingering over a cup of tea—‘I don’t go much for coffee in the evening,’ Endeavour politely declined—when it comes to a head.</p>
<p>Fred Thursday’s match is hovering above his pipe when he asks with deceptive casualness, ‘So you’re the “bloke knocked up in a heap by Joan’s fatal beauty”?’ His emphasis makes it clear he’s quoting someone.</p>
<p>Joan inhales abruptly, and immediately a sip of her tea goes the wrong way down. She begins to cough. <i>Of all the lowest tricks…</i></p>
<p>On the receiving end of Fred Thursday’s phrasing, Morse scowls. He didn’t expect it that way.</p>
<p>Neither did Joan. To have one of her jokes flung back at Endeavour is a low blow on Dad’s part. He must now be aware that she was lying through her teeth regarding her—then—whereabouts. But again, when it comes to his daughter, Dad never plays fair. If looks could kill, the front garden would be littered by the corpses of her previous suitors.</p>
<p>Fred Thursday raises his eyes from his task then takes a satisfied pull at his pipe, expectation written all over his face.</p>
<p>‘You may put it like that, sir,’ Morse answers with a tiny amused puff, outwardly unruffled.</p>
<p>‘Were you also the “bloke taking her in”?’</p>
<p>Fred Thursday’s brutal progress is relentless; just like a tank. Morse’s eyes flash something in riposte, but it’s gone so swiftly that Joan cannot really define it. He looks squarely into her father’s eyes.</p>
<p>
  <i>Unstoppable force meets unmoveable object. </i>
</p>
<p>She hates to see the two men she loves the most butting heads, so she exclaims, ‘Don’t be so medieval, Dad! It’s 1967, not 1067!’ Her hands flutter hastily in her eagerness to prove her point, and tea sloshes into her saucer.</p>
<p>‘We didn’t raise you to become some bloke’s fancy piece!’ her father snaps back.</p>
<p>This time, at his unaccustomed ruthlessness, Joan’s sharp intake of breath mingles with Win’s exclamation of hurt disbelief. Morse’s face blanches, his widening eyes showing how much the indignity a father can inflict comes also as an affront. Then, sheer haughtiness fills them, and his lips part.</p>
<p>But before he can reply, Joan does. ‘Dad—,’ she begins with as much calm as she can manage, then she pauses. It won’t be any use to deny it, so she takes the bull by the horns. ‘What if he <i>did</i> take me in?’</p>
<p>For Fred Thursday, her defiant admission isn’t anything new. However Win’s eyes betray her consternation at this flagrant disregard of all she taught her daughter. Joan has no choice now; she must explain. Probably what her father wanted. Nothing can hold a candle to his efficiency, although this is a low blow.</p>
<p>‘You should knight Morse, instead of berating him!’ Joan affirms hotly. ‘If he hadn’t been here, I would have gone away!’ In Morse’s eyes, a fleeting echo of his previous anguish flickers anew, bringing to her mind his flat despair when he confronted her that fateful morning. From her Dad’s sharpened look, neither does he miss it. ‘Probably for good,’ she rams home.</p>
<p>‘Whatever for?’ demands Fred Thursday.</p>
<p>Joan takes the time to ponder it. She never really had a perfect answer to that question, but now is perhaps the time to put all this behind her. Definitively.</p>
<p>‘I don’t really know,’ she admits at last. ‘I had just enough to pay train fare. Otherwise…’</p>
<p>
  <i>Otherwise, with that lost waif look of hers, she could have fallen prey to any bloke willing to take her in. It would have been the lowest point of her life. She had no place to go, not enough tin for a hotel room, even for a few nights. No immediate means to support herself. No back-up plan. It was a godsend that she keeled over at Morse’s feet when he went after her. </i>
</p>
<p>‘I just wanted out of my skin,’ Joan finally puts into words.</p>
<p>Endeavour puts his arm around her shoulders, drawing her nearer to him on the couch. Her cheek briefly leans on his shoulder, and once more, she feels his tenderness shelter her like a feathery cloak. What sizzles between them is all that matters, truly.</p>
<p>She briefly lays her right hand on his knee and inhales deeply. ‘I needed time to…to find myself. Morse gave me that. In spades. That’s all.’</p>
<p>
  <i>And that’s all her parents ever need to know. The rest is between the two of them. </i>
</p>
<p>‘If you really must know, Morse didn’t lay a finger on me. Except...’ She laughs drily at her father’s thunderous look. ‘Except for the time he picked me up from the pavement!’ Her tone turns earnest. ‘Come on! Morse is the kind of copper who sees young ladies safely home. Didn’t you know that already?’</p>
<p>‘Not this time,’ reproves Thursday.</p>
<p>At that, Morse’s hand faintly twitches on Joan’s shoulder. She covers it with her own and laces her fingers through his.</p>
<p>‘<i>So that’s the trouble, isn’t it? Dad still wants to control everything,</i>’ Joan considers at first, her conscience prompting her to concede that her parents were just worried sick about her.</p>
<p>Still, she can’t be hampered by it right now, so she goes on the defensive once more.</p>
<p>‘How did you know?’ she adds heatedly, ‘I asked Morse not to say anything. He gave me his word.’</p>
<p>She doesn’t have to look at Endeavour for confirmation. She knows he kept it. He’s that kind of bloke.</p>
<p>‘He kept it,’ confirms Fred Thursday.</p>
<p>Unwisely, Morse butts in. ‘It wasn’t my place to say. Moreover—’</p>
<p><i>Wrong move.</i> Morse’s honesty sets her father afire again. He glares at Morse, and under the force of those narrowed, unremitting eyes, Morse swallows audibly and checks himself. His fleeting look at Win discloses that she’ll be no help. Her mum seems even more upset than before, and it’s visibly more distressing for him.</p>
<p>‘You could have said you’d seen her! That she was all right!’ Fred Thursday’s voice rings with righteous indignation. ‘Strange did.’</p>
<p>Joan raises such incredulous eyes at her father that he counters, ‘Oh, yes, my girl, he did! He saw you enter Morse’s bedsit.’</p>
<p>Yet, the sudden tension in the room isn’t directed at her, but at Morse. It sets everyone quivering. Still, both men could hardly have been stonier, faces calm but bodies taut.</p>
<p>Morse’s eyes find Fred Thursday’s and search no further. ‘I gave her my word,’ he repeats quietly, and that’s it.</p>
<p>It’s only because Joan scrutinises her father keenly that she sees faint approval flash across his face. <i>Was he testing his bagman?</i> </p>
<p>Fred Thursday takes his pipe from his mouth and considers it intently. ‘Well,’ he finally drops, ‘Maybe it was for the best.’</p>
<p>Win’s hands, which were clasped tightly on her knees, relax, and she nervously rubs them together. She looks at her husband with a hopeful eye. He nods at her with a tiny smile, and she smiles tentatively back.</p>
<p>They have reached a point where there is nothing else to do but pause and draw a deep breath.</p>
<p>‘We didn't come here for a row,’ Joan declares, somehow unwilling to lower her guard. ‘Whatever you may think, it’s our lives, not yours.’</p>
<p>Morse puts a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Joan, it’s alright. Your father had the right to know.’ Their eyes lock. ‘He has,’ he repeats more compellingly, and she grudgingly nods.</p>
<p>As if it were licence for probing further, Thursday asks, ‘Then, what are your intentions regarding my daughter?’</p>
<p>This time, he really does it. Morse looks as gobsmacked as he can be, and Joan feels so furious that she’s robbed of speech. It this isn’t going to send Morse packing, she doesn’t know what will.</p>
<p>But Endeavour rises to the occasion. He answers quietly, ‘Sir, that’s a question for Joan, actually. I won’t do anything that she wouldn’t like.’</p>
<p>All eyes suddenly converge on her.</p>
<p>Joan winces. What her parents want for her is so bloody obvious: the engagement party, Uncle Charlie's blue jokes at the wedding, a two-up two-down on some new estate, every house the same, with a pram in the hall. Not only is she supposed to acquiesce meekly, but also to drag poor Morse on this straight, respectable path.</p>
<p>Well, that’s not the future she has in mind.</p>
<p>Not for a while, at any rate.</p>
<p>She wants to live to the full, to find out what she’s made for and achieve it. To enjoy her relationship with Morse without gluing any label to it.</p>
<p>She won’t be pressured into anything, even something she really <i>does</i> want, she realises with a start.</p>
<p>She also recognises that her mounting exasperation comes more from her father broaching the subject so openly than from her uncertainty about Morse. If he had not been christened ‘Endeavour,’ ‘Dependable’ would have suited him as perfectly. He’ll wait for her to make up her mind, she’s dead sure of it.</p>
<p>‘It’s early days yet,’ she says carefully. ‘We’ve been dating for…what? About a month?’ </p>
<p>And at her restrained answer, all light goes out from Morse’s eyes. She sees the blood drain from his face, leaving dejection in its wake, before he swiftly masters himself and covers it with a courteous, bland look.</p>
<p>‘But it’s…not casual,’ Joan hastens to add. However, her late addition doesn’t seem to make a big difference to Morse.</p>
<p>Still, her father insists. ‘Happy, are you?’ he asks Joan pointedly.</p>
<p>She nods cautiously, as if admitting it out loud might make it all disappear. Her curt answer satisfies him somehow, because he settles back more fully in his armchair. Win’s reaction is more spontaneous: she smiles at them so widely that her eyes crinkle at the corners.</p>
<p>After that, the evening ends fairly quickly. When they leave, Joan feels her father’s meditative gaze weighing on them and sees her mother’s warm and compassionate eyes resting on Morse. ‘<i>Joan is difficult,</i>’ Win seems to commiserate. Nonetheless, they haven’t expounded on her reluctance. <i>But her wanting to take things one step at a time should reassure them, surely?</i></p>
<p>While he drives her home—to Dorothea’s, Morse is at his most taciturn. Not a silence springing from ease, but stillness that tugs at her heart. Her attempts at conversation are skilfully deflected with an infuriating politeness, and they part without deciding on their next rendezvous.</p>
<p>Morse’s face is courteous and quite unreadable; Joan can’t guess what is going on in the mind behind it.</p>
<p>And the orange shade on her lips doesn’t get mussed up at all.<br/>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><span class="u">Note to the readers who read this chapter before 20th March 2020</span>: it has been edited and Brit-picked without any major changes.</p>
<p>The inspiration for Joan’s orange dress comes from <a href="https://beatnikhiway.com/2014/01/29/the-summer-of-love-1967-video/1967-summer-of-love-wardrobe-inspiration-2/">this 1967 catalogue</a>.</p>
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    <i>Comments, anyone? I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts!</i>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Lovers (inverted)</h2></a>
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</div><p>‘<i>Behind you…The Lovers inverted. You've been unlucky in love.</i>’</p><p><br/>
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Then work slithers between them and slowly pushes them apart.</p><p>First, it’s ‘The Avengers Affair’—as Joan has dubbed it. She is told that Morse is away from the Cowley nick along with her Dad, and fearing goss that might embarrass him, she doesn’t leave a message when she calls. It’s bad enough sensing Jim Strange’s blatant curiosity on the other side of the line. Besides, late night phone calls are out of the question when Endeavour might be dead on his feet after a busy day.</p><p>Afterwards, Morse fends off her repeated offers for lunch, tea, dinner, supper or whatever. Each time she gets him on the phone, his voice is cranky and wintry despite the late summer heat—not even his I’m-speaking-in-my-DC-official-voice tone but truly remote—and each time, he flatly tells her that ‘something came up and demands my immediate attention.’</p><p>Work is well and good, but he’s going on too long. Using it to push her away. Or is she getting paranoid?</p><p>The third time, in a huff, she threatens under her breath, ‘Endeavour Morse, another bloody excuse and I’ll camp out on your doorstep until you come home.’</p><p>That does the trick. He agrees to meet her at his flat for an early breakfast in the morning. She’ll bring it, she stresses, so he’ll have something solid in his stomach to begin the day. He’s probably as little desirous as she is to have Jim Strange playing duenna again and dropping a word <i>en passant</i> to their Governor: Joan sitting out the night on a DC’s doorstep would probably provoke a call to the police from a nosy neighbour for vagrancy.</p><p>Joan hangs up the receiver with more vigour than necessary. The sound of a throat clearing makes her look up sharply from her in-progress checking list forms about to be sent to storage. The face of her employer appears between neat stacks of early twentieth-century newspapers and rolls of microfilms.</p><p>‘Joan, any messages while I was out?’</p><p>Joan digs up a notebook under two open folders. ‘Claudine sent her excuses and declines the photo shoot offer. Says she has a freelancing opportunity. Will probably go back to France, as “something’s brewing” in Paris.’ She adds helpfully, ‘She didn’t say what.’</p><p>‘Hmm, better this than Vietnam for her. Everybody isn’t fit to follow in Bob Capa’s footsteps. Can you call Dexter for me? Or rather Jenkins? Could be interested in the job. Anything else?’</p><p>Joan jots it down, before replying, ‘Yes. Someone’s secretary called about Goldfinger—err, sorry…’ She laughs, and it rings a little hollow. ‘Golden—that’s it, Goldenrod.’ She finds a leaf torn from a notebook and browses its contents. ‘From a Mr. Blake, Elliott Blake. Confirming the interview. Phone number’s over here.’</p><p>Dorothea’s face brightens. ‘Ha! About time. Their new reactor’s becoming operational next weekend.’</p><p>In answer to Joan’s wordless interrogation, she clarifies, ‘Bramford power plant,’ and observes with attention Joan’s sudden interest. ‘Concerned by the atomic industry?’</p><p>‘Have I cause to be?’ says Joan. ‘No, I felt I’d heard the name somewhere, that’s all.’</p><p>‘Well, if you recall where and why, don’t hesitate to tell me.’</p><p><i>Dee has no shame pumping for information</i>, recollects Joan. First and foremost a reporter, even if she’s become a friend too. She shrugs, ‘I will, but don’t hold your breath.’</p><p>Dorothea takes the scribbled messages from Joan’s extended hand. Before she exits the archivist’s corner, she turns around.</p><p>‘By the way, you all right? You don’t look as though you’ve been sleeping well.’</p><p>‘I’m fine,’ prevaricates Joan, although since last week she passed more time tossing and turning in her bed than getting some shuteye.</p><p>‘Boy trouble?’</p><p>‘I’m not so sure I still have a boy,’ she admits.</p><p>‘Maybe that’s the trouble,’ says Dee, and Joan doesn’t know if that’s the editor speaking through her usual quips or if that’s the friend worrying about them both. She truly likes Endeavour, too, Joan recalls.</p><p>‘Whatever happens, take tomorrow morning off. It will do you a world of good.’</p><p>‘<i>Especially if I manage to get a hold of Morse,</i>’ Joan thinks gratefully. She nods agreeably.</p><p>‘This can wait a while.’ Miss Frazil’s gesture encompasses the piles of papers surrounding Joan—all these dead loves, politics and human sufferings which can do nothing to help her out of her present quagmire.</p><p>The relativity of human distresses, Joan reflects. In a few centuries, her heartaches and self-questionings won’t mean more than those of a fly squashed on a window. <i>God, Morse’s doom and gloom is contagious. </i></p><p>With determination, she focuses on her lists. There is no gain to worry oneself in advance about which she can do nothing about right now. But it’s heavy doing.</p><p><br/>
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</p><p>Joan doesn’t like the sight of him when Morse opens his door. The hazy early morning light does nothing to hide his weariness. At her close scrutiny, colour rises in his cheeks and a slow smile eases the tired lines of his mouth. However, there is a slightly feverish glitter in his eyes, and he shouldn’t stand there in his shirt sleeves in the moist air.</p><p>She waits for him to shut the door on the outside world, and without a word flings herself into his waiting arms.</p><p>‘Ouch,’ he exclaims when the content of her mesh-net shopping bag swings about and connects with his hip. In her impatience to embrace him, she has forgotten to let go of it.</p><p>Seeing her contrite face, he grins. ‘Missed me?’</p><p>‘What do you think?’</p><p>‘Let’s put it to the test—’ he suggests with a voice made suddenly rough with longing.</p><p>He pries the groceries bag from her hand, chucks it onto the table and swiftly proceeds to show her how much he wished for her, winding one arm round her waist and with his other hand, cupping her chin. His lips are warm and demanding, and she wholeheartedly reciprocates the fervour of a man not that given to outward passions. When he finally releases her, embers have sparked into intensity in his gaze.</p><p>Joan puts out her hands and flattens them against his chest, pushing back a little so she can move away. Gasping for breath, she whispers with an uneven voice, ‘Breakfast—’ before he finds her mouth again and gently silences her.</p><p>The second time, Joan places her fingers on his lips laughingly. ‘I’ll start breakfast.’</p><p>The gaze he returns makes it obvious that he’s not hungry for her groceries, but he complies without any demur.</p><p>Her lips still tingling, Joan takes slices of bacon and sausages wrapped in greased paper, eggs carton, fresh butter, strawberry jam pot and loaf of bread out of her shopping bag. Morse looks at the appearance of edible food on his coffee table and counter doubtfully, his head tilting in that endearing way of his he adopts when he’s deep into his thoughts. From his expression, he has never seen that many provisions all at once in his flat at half past six in the morning.</p><p>Without paying attention to his inspection, Joan gets busy in what passes for a kitchen in his bed-sit while he takes care of the tea. Soon, scents of frying food permeate the room and water is on the boil, while tea leaves are waiting for their drowning in the teapot. When the last of the scrambled eggs have joined fried bacon and sausage on Morse’s mismatched plates, Joan sits next to him. The smell of toasted bread makes her mouth water, although some of her previous anxiety regarding the much anticipated conversation with Endeavour hasn’t been totally dispelled by his fervent welcome.</p><p>At first, Morse’s fork hovers over his plate as if the food heaped on it was an unaccountable sight. However, he scarfs it down without compunction. It isn’t lost on Joan. She frowns. ‘When did you last eat?’</p><p>He blinks and considers his almost empty plate with some bewilderment. ‘Yesterday morning?’</p><p>He doesn’t seem quite sure of it either, so she chides softly, ‘Endeavour, you must remember to eat sometimes.’</p><p>Morse nods absently and washes down his sausage with half a cup of tea. There is some colour back in his face now, but the bruised look around his eyes is still conspicuous.</p><p>‘Really, you work too hard,’ Joan insists. Another suspicion enters her mind. ‘At least, did you sleep enough?’</p><p>‘No,’ he replies, and adds with a touch of surprise, ‘I’ve been thinking.’</p><p>The absurdity of his disconcerted statement is such that she nearly laughs aloud. But seeing his troubled face, she abstains and instead places her cup carefully before her on the table. ‘Not an unusual exercise for you, surely?’</p><p>He passes a tired hand over his face. ‘I mean—Strange told me that a mate of his is forming a new unit.’ His voice is reasonable and quiet, but there is an undercurrent of unease coursing beneath this announcement.</p><p>Joan doesn’t understand where it’s leading, but her breath hitches. This is momentous, she can feel it. Her hand flies defensively to her throat, and she hears herself say in a voice she doesn’t recognise, ‘Go on.’</p><p>‘Strange recommended that I call DI Craddock. Moving might mean more money, promotion.’ Morse’s jaw clenches. ‘I’ve earned it ten times over and yet…Even Mr. Bright agrees.’ His tense shoulders speak anger now, mingled with incredulity. ‘My sergeant’s exam was the only one that went astray!’</p><p>Her next question is obvious, and yet Joan waits until the very last second to utter it. ‘Where?’</p><p>‘London. The Met. I would be Craddock’s bagman.’</p><p>The sheer enormity of it pierces Joan’s brain when he adds in the same precise tone of voice, ‘At Tintagel House.’ His voice seems to come from afar; very, very far away. </p><p>‘You’d leave Oxford?’ </p><p>‘<i>You’d leave…me?</i>’ her mind shrieks. The pain explodes in the region of Joan’s ribcage, yet she manages to articulate, ‘Is your career that important to you?’ She’d rather ask, ‘<i>Is it more important than</i> us?’ but doesn’t dare; she’s afraid of his answer.</p><p>‘A career won’t hold you at three in the morning when the wolves come circling,’ he says quickly and reassuringly. He reaches out and his hand lightly strokes her cheek and traces the curve of her neck, pushing back her hair over her shoulder. The coldness of his skin seeps into hers. ‘If I had—with…someone, all of this wouldn't matter at all to me.’</p><p>Joan’s throat is suddenly dry as sanding paper and she craves a sip of her tea. But instead of getting her cup, she sits staring at it with painful concentration for what feels at least a minute.</p><p>Morse slowly withdraws his hand and heaves a long, frustrated sigh. ‘But love is a luxury on my wages. Money is necessary to—to a family.’</p><p>He casts a significant look at his drab surroundings: the ordinary furniture, the single bed, the cramped kitchen corner, the tiny bathroom, the used wallpaper and the uninspiring drapes in a maroon palette.</p><p>Joan suddenly remembers how he seemed miffed when she made him understand that his bed sit was on the small side for them both. The implications are so overwhelming that her head whirls and she inanely says, ‘I didn’t take you for a family man.’</p><p>No sooner have the words fallen from her mouth that she wants to swallow them back, as Morse turns whiter than white. She wants to offer some sort of retraction for her ill-judged comment, but he offers quite tentatively, as if neither he nor anything he did could matter to her now, ‘It entirely depends on you.’</p><p>The intensity of his gaze is frightening. A whirl of sky blue verging on cloudy grey slowly mesmerising her will; so that she almost says, ‘yes, I’ll go with you anywhere,’ before she takes a hold of herself. She lowers her eyes to escape this temptation, but not before she sees something twitch in his jaw.</p><p>The silence sluggishly thickening between them is unnerving. Joan must break it. She has to, so she darts a look up. But thoughts can’t coalesce in her brain while he’s looking at her with soulful eyes filled with such hope and ardent enticement. All his life seems to have gathered in them, and she feels drawn in despite her best judgment.</p><p>As she stays silent, trying to digest all of it, he sighs wretchedly then adds yet another variable to the equation. ‘There’s another opportunity. Teaching. They need a Classics master at a boys’ school called Coldwater.’ He pauses, deep in thoughts, and his tongue wets his lower lip. ‘Back to the old masters for me, in this case. Lodgings would be provided.’ His tone makes obvious what he really thinks of living in backwater country for long.</p><p>Joan’s eyes are staunchly focused on her cup: a tiny tea leaf escaped from the strainer and is now floating at the surface; its darker hue a stark contrast against the white china and the lighter brew. Its circumnavigation around the rim of the china suddenly engrosses all her attention, while contrary feelings fill her mind like moths flapping around a candle.</p><p>Seeing that she’s determined not to look at him, Morse doggedly goes on, ‘But it would be only for a year or so. I could put something away and we—I should have enough for a deposit on somewhere two years from now.’</p><p>‘You’d go alone?’ Joan probes when her voice decides to make its reappearance.</p><p>‘Not alone,’ he answers, and his look of entreaty apprises her of the company he hopes for.</p><p>This is moving too fast. Much, much too fast.</p><p>In the space of four months, Morse has gone from her father’s shy and elusive bagman to potential flirt to trusted friend to…what? Boyfriend, not quite fiancé, but behaving as if she was already shackled to him? Making plans without talking it over with her beforehand? Getting interviews out of Oxford without mentioning it to her, although he knows she’s trying to sort out her life here?</p><p>If she agrees, what next? Will he morph into a husband whose possessive fervour looks upon his wife as an extension of himself? Will he consider that his love for her is a sufficient excuse for the dependency under which she’ll live? Will she ever have her say or will Endeavour consider her a ‘fair lady’ to protect and to shield from the big bad wolves of life? She’s not her mother. She won’t live like this.</p><p>Or is she projecting her fears on him? After all, he’s not her father, and she’s not her mother. Hadn’t Morse mentioned several times that he refused to do anything without her approval?</p><p>How can she answer him before solving these riddles?</p><p>So Joan merely asks, ‘Does Dad know?’</p><p>‘I haven’t had a word with him about it yet.’ He seizes his half-eaten toast and glowers at it as if it had sprouted new crust. His day hasn’t really begun, and he already looks storm beaten.</p><p>Unsaid words can’t remain pending. She must tell him—<i>what must she tell him?</i> That she’ll consider the options? Endeavour hasn’t precisely <i>asked</i> her anything. Just informed her that he will—what will he do?</p><p>But it’s already too late.</p><p>Time is running out. Again. A quick glimpse at Morse’s wristwatch tells Joan that they have to go their separate ways. He follows her gaze and realises it too. Impatience twists his mouth and his toast disintegrates into crumbs between his fingers.</p><p>‘Please, Joan, think about it,’ he pleads again, when she picks up her bag. And for a heartbeat, Endeavour’s face loses its armour, as a quiver flutters at the corner of his mouth. Joan acquiesces because there is nothing else she can do at this point. There aren’t enough seconds for anything else, questions, hesitation, acceptance or tantrum.</p><p>She steps closer to him, and raises her face up. He stoops down in order to kiss her, without lingering.</p><p>And so they part, two equally proud and stung people. One with ebony hair, the other with glints of brass in his. One severely gaunt, the other more curvaceous. However, in the fierceness of their first major misunderstanding, their faces are eerily alike, as though they were so akin that each had become the twin of the other.</p><p><br/>
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</p><p>Afterwards, the days drag on. Joan often wishes that she were working full-time. It would stop her mind brooding over that unfortunate breakfast.</p><p>She has no one to discuss it with, except her conscience. Speaking with her mother is out of the question—Mum would confide in Dad, and then the tiger would dash out of the bag—and the same applies to Dee—Joan won’t expose Morse’s plans to Miss Frazil’s scrutiny.</p><p>With a pang, Joan also realises that she can’t rely on her previous ‘friends.’ Their former shared fun and games are immaterial now. She’s a different person; not the Joan who took up flirting as an amusing sport without substance and dated boys as agreeable escorts for an evening out.</p><p>Moreover, that fateful morning is slowly shaking all her recent certainties.</p><p>It even throws stones into her projects, and she can’t gather enough grit to go on with her carefully crafted plans—to submit an unsolicited application to Viv Wall for a full-time job and to find a shared flat with girls she won’t have the urge to murder the first time one of them forgets about their agreed house rules. Her present temp job is coming to an end in a few weeks’ time, so Joan must find another, more permanent one. She can’t rely on the kindness of friends and in no way is she going back to her parents or accepting Morse’s…implied proposal out of desperation. She feels frozen in amber; sunlight reaches her, but she can’t really feel the warmth anymore.</p><p>Yet, despite her best resolves, Joan knows that, unless something comes up, her life is now depending on Morse’s future, Morse’s reactions, and Morse’s views. It is as if her whole world has shrunk down to one man.</p><p>When she realises this, her irritation redoubles. So much for her hard-won independence!</p><p>As for talking things over with Morse and reconciling their differences, forget it! Despite her best attempts to see him, her efforts are met with the same lack of success as before. Morse is busy and getting busier by the hour. It would seem Mr. Bright dumps all the paperwork available in the entire Thames Valley on his desk when Morse is not gallivanting all across the county.</p><p>So Joan stops trying to get a hold of him, and heaps half-baked reasons for her vacillations. She’s still in the dark as to the future she wants with Endeavour, so what could she say to him? His apparent blind assumption that she’ll do his bidding is still smarting, superseding all her other considerations.</p><p>One night, at one in the morning, she spends a good ten minutes contemplating if she should write a letter to Miss Ling, <i>The Oxford Mail</i>’s agony aunt, ‘Would a flaming row with your intended be preferable to a bloody sulk?’ and ends up laughing at herself so hard that tears come to her eyes.</p><p>Maybe she should toss a coin. It’d be easier.</p><p><br/>
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</p><p>An alternative for that letter comes from an unexpected front.</p><p>The idea first comes as a jest and then takes a life of its own when several girls at <i>The Oxford Mail</i> decide to give it a go. To begin with, Joan is reluctant, but she decides to join them as the location tickles her fancy. The fact that Bramford has a recent direct association to Morse weighs a lot in the balance. Not that she expects to run into him there, but knowing that he walked these lanes and talked to the village dwellers is an additional, irrational connection with him.</p><p>A part of her brushes away this lure with disdain. The girl who didn’t want to get weighed down by a lover’s decree rushing towards any reminder of him! Truly, she’s pathetic.</p><p>In the afternoon, they pile up in a Mini which has seen better days, some of its most obvious bumps hidden by flower-shaped stickers. Linda drives. Ann, who planned it and knew about the wise woman from her cousin, occupies the front seat, leaving Joan on the rear—content to be left alone with her thoughts.</p><p>Bramford isn’t much despite its antiquated charm: a post-office, a pub, a pretty church, and a town square. The cottages lining the main street are quintessentially English, with their dormer windows topped with red tiles. The pale red of their brick and the pale grey flint walls shine under the afternoon sun and it’s challenging to associate this postcard prettiness with anything as weird as card readings and predictions.</p><p>Still, Ann parrots again, ‘Mrs. Chattox’s reading was absolutely accurate and it helped Babs getting out of it.’ By ‘it’ she could be referring to anything from a failed relationship to a traffic jam, as Joan lets her mind float away from her incessant chatter and didn’t quite pay attention her previous strings of words.</p><p>They park right in front of <i>The Hanged Man</i>. The main street is empty and quiet, the only muted sound is a staccato banging that grows louder when they reach the square. There people are dancing with dislocated steps, their faces hidden under wicker, papier-mâché, or wood masks; their stomping and clapping further dehumanising them. The few merely wearing straw hats have glazed, fixed eyes.</p><p>‘<i>Curiouser and curiouser</i>,’ Joan previously said to Morse; now she finds the quote totally unsatisfactory. ‘<i>Wacko</i>,’ ‘<i>spooky</i>,’ or ‘<i>freaky</i>’ would have been ideal terms.</p><p>When the young women leave civilization to walk into a copse, she isn’t the only one looking relieved to leave the Bramford dancers behind. Light passes sparingly through the canopy of leaves, and their feet often trip over overgrown roots. No worn path leads to their destination, and after a while Joan understands that Ann is somehow counting their steps.</p><p>‘<i>If that’s the only way Ann’s got to get her bearings, we’ll end up going round in circles in this patch of wood</i>,’ Joan considers with some misgivings. </p><p>Whatever made her join this…expedition? She ought to have followed her first impulse and try to secure an interview with Viv Wall. Maybe she could even negotiate a part-time trial period while she’s still on <i>Oxford Mail</i> payroll.</p><p>The shadowy setting reminds her of lost treasure hunts tales, and also of others, more ghastly that she’d rather leave to her childhood imaginings. Nervously, she looks over her shoulder from time to time, but the monsters of her childhood have kept hidden under her bed and aren’t creeping up after her.</p><p>Suddenly, the trees seem to dissolve in a dazzling beam of light. Half-blinded by the harsh daylight suddenly flooding into a clearing, Ann bumps into a wicket gate. In plain sight, surrounded by cropped dry grass and a low fence, stands the house of the alleged witch they came to see.</p><p>The wooden front porch is encumbered with a table surmounted by a giant succulent. Dead vines tangle around the pillars and the railing. New, luxuriant greenery fights to get the upper hand over the assembled man-made wooden construction. The planks sag a little under their soles when they climb the two steps leading to it and circle the house. There aren’t a sound apart from faint chimes and soft clang. Above their head, some mobiles made of wood, straw and ribbons are dangling; swinging slowly with the breezes and tied under the beams of the projected roof. The house seems devoid of life.</p><p>‘Hello,’ Linda hails. ‘Anybody home?’</p><p>Bringing up the rear, Joan wonders again why she agreed to come. Bramford is a place she doesn’t quite like and it doesn’t fulfill its object. There is nothing there that can distract her from her uncertainties or help her to make a choice. <i>To Morse or not to Morse</i>. The issue is still unresolved.</p><p>The old woman takes them all by surprise. The front door opens noiselessly, and there she is, looking at them with bright eyes. She wears an old beige cardigan over a flowered flowing dress bundled into a dark green apron. Iron grey hair frames her face in soft waves, but there is nothing soft in the grey stare that looks the three young women over from heads to feet.</p><p>After a while, she humphs and nods vigorously. ‘Come to have your readings, have you? To each her own.’</p><p>A curt beckoning hand gesture welcomes them inside and another sends Ann and Joan to a couch with their back to the door, while Linda sits docilely at the round table before the window.</p><p>Mrs. Chattox’s eyes glitter with what seems like amusement, a stark fuse of a stare, which imposes silence on the daunted young women. A stare that shines oddly in the chiaroscuro of the room, lit more by subdued lamps than from the sun that comes up against the window panes.</p><p>Joan casts a discreet look around. The place is unusual in a common way: walls of panelled wood and raw bricks, more weird mobiles dangling, and netting over the window like a spider’s web in the shape of a pentacle. ‘<i>Is that what Mrs. Chattox is?</i>’ she wonders, ‘<i>A crafty spider drawing in foolish prey who want to uncover their future for a few bobs?</i>’ Mismatched battered furniture features an old sideboard that displays some knick-knacks, farming tools, old and fairly new, old pictures, preserves in glass jars and a few plants in pots. Near the entrance, there is a painting of a guardian angel admonishing an errant child, his wide wings flapping wide and yellowish with age and cracks in the paint.</p><p>There’s even a Winchester rifle hung on the wall. Suddenly the image of her hostess as the fabled Calamity Jane impresses itself on Joan’ brain and she turns her head away to smother a bubbling laugh.</p><p>Seated by her side, and looking very much the downcast schoolgirl, Ann pouts in an undertone, ‘I should have gone on first. After all, it was my idea!’</p><p>‘Don’t worry!’ Joan soothes her. ‘There’re enough Tarot cards for us three.’</p><p>They sneak a peep over their shoulders. At the other end of the room, Linda leans over the table where cards are spread out before her, looking at them with round eyes. The occultist whispers to her, and Linda suddenly jerks back, blushing.</p><p>‘What did she say?’ asks Ann, ‘Did you hear?’</p><p>‘No,’ says Joan, and she doesn’t want to. If privacy’s holding for Linda, it will presumably be good for her, too. And that’s fine. She doesn’t want Mrs. Chattox’s fortune for her making the rounds during lunchbreaks.</p><p>After a while, Linda gets up and takes Ann’s seat next to Joan, looking out of spirits.</p><p>‘Nothing bad?’ Joan asks politely.</p><p>‘No, no.’ Linda takes a compact from her handbag and touches up her make-up a bit before elaborating, ‘Just surprised. It was very…accurate.’</p><p>‘Oh!’ Joan merely comments. No use to tell the girl sitting next to her that fortune tellers do a lot of their mumbo jumbo using subtle appraisals of movements and reactions from their customers. That and a pinch of common sense are the tools of their trade. Joan won’t take any of it at face value, but her own reactions to it might teach her something about herself.</p><p>When her turn comes, Joan is dead sure that Mrs. Chattox won’t tell her anything she doesn’t already know, and that the rest will be hocus-pocus and cheap average warnings or predictions. <i>Joan will go on a journey; she’ll meet a tall, dark and very rich stranger and get hitched on the Riviera with releases of doves in front of the church. Or she’ll win the sweepstakes and will go off into the sunset without a care.</i></p><p>Whilst she was compiling clichés in her mind, Ann and Linda had gone outside, their readings done. Joan can hear them giggling and comparing notes, the muted sound of their voices coming in drafts through the half-open door.</p><p>Mrs. Chattox gets up and closes it. ‘There. We won’t be disturbed.’ She scrutinises Joan’s face and laughs softly. ‘You’re a disbeliever in the power of the cards, aren’t you?’</p><p>It’s not surprising that she guessed it, Joan reasons. Something in her posturing or a smirk must have betrayed it. ‘Let’s say that I don’t see how a pack of cards could foresee my fate, that’s all,’ she answers. ‘It’s…’ <i>Unscientific? Stupid?</i> Her voice trails and she politely doesn’t complete her sentence.</p><p>The old woman exhales but keeps on shuffling the Tarot cards. She must have seen Joan’s reluctance often enough. Yet, she commands, ‘Since you’re here, you must ask a question of the cards.’</p><p>Joan hesitates, but the fortune teller urges her on. ‘You came here seeking answers, so why don’t you take a chance?’</p><p>The young woman leans back in her chair. The ceiling, hung on with drapes and nets, is no inspiration and, in the spur of the moment, Joan decides that she’ll play the game. She came this far, so why not take it seriously for a while?</p><p>‘Will I reach the right decision?’ she queries. <i>There, that should do it. Nebulous enough.</i></p><p>Mrs. Chattox nods slightly, and with a flourish, her hand alights on the cards aligned in a row on the table between them. There are four cards on the tablecloth, facing down. Her hand turns the one farthest from Joan’s right.</p><p>The card is timeworn, almost like a family heirloom. On the cardboard, the faded drawing is rough and the sparse colours badly applied. They bleed over the tracing, overlapping each other. The writing underneath the figure is in a foreign language. Italian? French?</p><p>‘The first card stands for yourself,’ Mrs. Chattox intones solemnly.</p><p>Great! If ‘<i>Le Fol</i>’ means ‘<i>The Fool</i>,’ that’s an inauspicious beginning…and a proper depiction of what Joan feels like at the moment.</p><p>Her feelings must have shown in her face because Mrs. Chattox explains, ‘It’s not a bad card. Ruled by Uranus, “<i>The Fool</i>” is a symbol of the soul’s journey. It stands for change.’</p><p>Joan’s hands, which are folded on the table-top, jerk involuntarily.</p><p>The fortune teller darts a quick glance at them and clarifies with a smiling note in her voice, ‘“<i>The Fool</i>” proclaims a need for change and novelty. You want a new life. You’re striving for it with raw energy, but you’ll have to control it, if you want—’ her eyes leave the card and she glances directly into Joan’s widened eyes. ‘—if you want to avoid getting caught up in hasty decisions that may turn out negatively for you. You’ll need to consider carefully before making them.’ She sighs as if wanting to say, ‘<i>but the young don’t often heed warnings</i>.’</p><p>Joan doesn’t say anything, her mind in turmoil. <i>What where the odds of this card surfacing, unless there is some invisible marking on it?</i> She can’t calculate them, but her rational good sense holds determinedly onto that thought.</p><p>Without paying any mind, Mrs. Chattox goes on, ‘“<i>The Fool</i>” may also be the symbol of immature love or love at first sight, with a fierce need for freedom and change—’</p><p>Joan applies pressure to her hands to control their trembling, whilst she listens with rising dumbfounded astonishment.</p><p>‘—or he stands for deep passionate love. That entirely depends on you.’ Mrs. Chattox smiles wryly. ‘Regarding your job, it heralds something new in your professional life. Change, again, sought after. But never forget to keep your free will; this is <i>your</i> strength.’</p><p>The spotted hand goes to the second card. ‘Behind you…’</p><p>A flip of the hand, and the card facing Joan reveals a man standing between two women and surmounted by a hovering Cupid afflicted with a bad scoliosis. The little airborne god appears a second away of crashing down, his bent wings not strong enough to support his flight.</p><p>‘Oh! “<i>The Lovers</i>” inverted. You've been unlucky in love.’</p><p>‘<i>Who hasn’t?</i>’ Joan thinks belligerently. She not the only one, surely!</p><p>If that’s supposed to be an earth-shattering announcement, it comes a little too late! From the postman she had a crush on when she was 11 to Paul Marlock, with some quite forgettable faces in between, her unrequited so-called love affairs have been numerous and as disappointing. </p><p>Will Endeavour join this sad cohort? She hopes not. She fears so.</p><p>‘Unlucky in love, indeed. But more importantly, irresolute in your decisions. You’re upside down, going through a period of doubts and hesitations.’ Mrs. Chattox’s voice is stronger, assertive. ‘You must keep your self-confidence. All the more since you must listen to your inner self in a confused situation. You might certainly tread on a wrong path, so not making choices on a whim is doubly important now.’</p><p>‘So the card’s positive, even if it’s inverted?’ Joan questions, despite her better judgment.</p><p>‘It hovers on a knife’s edge. It is usually a positive one when one is prudent and wise, but here, it renews the warning: you do <i>have to</i> make a choice. Make sure it’s the right one.’</p><p>‘No unveiling of the future, then? Just the here-and-now?’ </p><p>Joan can’t keep the disappointment out of her voice. It surprises her: is she actually beginning to pay attention to this weird game? ‘<i>Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards!</i>’ she suddenly wants to cry out. Unexpectedly, she feels like Alice in Wonderland, bogged down in a warped reality grown too real and extensive for her full understanding.</p><p>It’s with some trepidation that she awaits the turning of the next one.</p><p>‘Now, before you… “<i>Judgement</i>”,’ Mrs. Chattox announces.</p><p>Weirdly logical. If she’s supposed to make some choice, judgement is the next step. <i>So what?</i></p><p>Joan says it.</p><p>‘“<i>Judgement</i>” announces changes, new beginnings or new inspirations, but also the unexpected in your life. But it is rather favourable and will lead you to a quite positive life transformation…after a difficult and chaotic period. It will also open hidden doors to a part of you which you haven’t discovered yet.’ Mrs. Chattox shakes her head thoughtfully. ‘More freedom. Which ties in with some of your aspirations.’</p><p><i>No foreign trip and no tall dark strangers on the horizon yet</i>. ‘And…l—love?’ Joan probes after all.</p><p>‘Hmm. This card divulges that even if you believe that everything is lost, there remain possibilities and solutions to give you the chance to start over, for the best.’</p><p>
  <i>Will she? Maybe she must keep on and go camp on Endeavour’s front steps.</i>
</p><p>‘And now… The heart of the matter—’ the oracle’s attention fastens onto the next card, and then she frowns. ‘—“<i>The Tower</i>” struck down.</p><p>On the cardboard is printed a tower struck by lightning whose top is cut off like a soft-boiled egg. At its base, two men are flung away under the force of the explosion. <i>Not a good omen, obviously</i>.</p><p>‘It must be destroyed to be rebuilt, this tower. Abrupt changes are coming your way, and they cannot be foretold.’ Mrs. Chattox leans back in her chair pensively. ‘You asked about love? “<i>The Tower</i>” is another warning: the moment of truth, a crisis and a requirement to change the bases of your relationship or else…it will go off. As for your job, it predicts an about-turn…but you’ll have to invest yourself more in order to progress.’</p><p>Warily, Joan pushes her chair away from the table.</p><p>She needs to distance herself from the Tarot cards. She feels sucked in, as if she were becoming one of the figures drawn on the trump, as if she were falling from the tower, one of the coloured, festive balls of fire bouncing between earth and sky, another casualty of an unaccountable flare-up gone bad.</p><p>In a daze, she watches the wrinkled hand, made rough by farm chores, pick up the last card. The old woman begins, ‘Crossed by—’</p><p>This Tarot card goes to rest over ‘<i>The Tower</i>’. Mrs. Chattox withdraws her hand, and stares at the figure of a cross fashioned by the two cards. “—‘<i>The World</i>”,’ she says, focusing on the pattern.</p><p>On impulse, Joan puts her hand lightly over it. The card on top displays a naked woman, standing inside a crown of leaves, while the four Evangelists peer at her with crossed eyes.</p><p>‘Please don’t. I don’t want to know,’ she says urgently. </p><p><i>Is the naked woman supposed to be her? Is nakedness symbolizing frailty? Naked before the world, for all to see?</i> Full ignorance is way better than half clues. She doesn’t want to know anymore.</p><p>‘As you wish…’ Mrs. Chattox baulks. ‘But that’s too bad. It could have helped you, to know.’</p><p>‘I’ve already learned all I wanted to know. So I’ve got to make a choice—choices. I said it at first. Don’t we all?’</p><p>Joan opens her handbag and finds her purse, but she doesn’t complete the gesture.</p><p>‘Don’t,’ Mrs. Chattox says, emphasizing her refusal with a sharp nod. ‘I didn’t finish the reading.’ She shakes her head, vehemently. ‘The cards never lie.’</p><p>‘I’m sure they don’t.’ This time, Joan’s answer isn’t entirely incited by politeness. She slowly gets up and thanks the other woman.</p><p>As she goes out, meeting with Ann’s and Linda’s curiosity, the same unanswerable questions flip into her head: <i>is that fish or fowl? Has she been taken for a ride?</i></p><p>At the end of their journey back to Oxford, she still can’t decide. But unease remains.<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The <b>Tarot reading</b> was based on real interpretation of the symbols of the cards… In the episode, Russell Lewis mischievously used the Tarot cards common symbolism to underline the events of the show. As the reading could be used in several ways, I made use of it.<br/><br/><b>Comments? Thoughts? I'd be very (VERY) happy to read them! I'm SO very grateful for all your comments and kudos!</b><br/><i>The next chapter will be posted next Monday</i>.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm quite awed by the lovely and enthusiastic comments to this fic and I can't thank you enough for them! They are so very precious to me and encourage me to keep writing! I feel very privileged to be on the receiving end of such comments.<br/>THANK YOU!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p>‘<i>Before you, Judgement.</i>’</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
Know the alternative. This makeshift motto springs into Joan’s mind when she wakes in the early hours. If she’s got to make choices, she’d better know the full picture.</p>
<p>She goes through her morning routine speedily, and then walks briskly to Morse’s bedsit. If she hurries, she may catch him before he leaves.</p>
<p>He’s there, alright. But he’s not alone.</p>
<p>Some weeks ago, Joan has spent nearly a fortnight in his bedsit, but, now, when she reaches it, it’s like entering in a familiar room which had been emptied of its essence and is no longer familiar. If it were a song, it’d be off-key.</p>
<p>Pushing the door left ajar, and standing in the entrance, the all-around confusion hits her full blast.</p>
<p>Something crunches under her heel. Crouching over it, heartsick and furious, she understands that it’s a piece of a broken record. The remaining label specifies ‘<i>Mozart: Great M…</i>’ and consternation floods her. Thunderstruck, she picks it up and raises the vinyl fragment next to her ear, as if her unconscious gesture would elicit from it the music once cradled in its now interrupted grooves. </p>
<p>Coming from the main room, Jim Strange’s unmistakable timbre reaches her ears. ‘Sorry, matey.’</p>
<p>Morse replies stoically, his voice revealing nothing of his feelings, ‘One of those things. We see it enough.’</p>
<p>‘Yeah, but you're one of our own,’ replies Strange.</p>
<p>A peep into the main room reveals Morse standing hunched in front of the alcove occupied by his unmade bed and holding a cup in both hands as if too much pressure would make it crumble into dust. Jim Strange has his back to the entrance, while the lovely blonde WPC, who was so helpful when Joan was escorted out of the Wessex Bank, leans against the mantelpiece, facing the sergeant. She notices Joan first and smiles a welcome at her.</p>
<p>Joan smiles mechanically back, a wobbly stretching of the lips devoid of any warmth. She’s still holding the bit of vinyl, bemused by the amount of destruction in such a tiny space.</p>
<p>Morse stares at the broken record before pointing out apologetically, ‘Sorry, Joan, you’ll have to be fingerprinted, too.’</p>
<p><i>That’s right</i>, Joan realises. <i>She must have left her marks everywhere when he rescued her from herself.</i></p>
<p>‘Scene of crime’s done here,’ notes Jim. ‘Hello, Joanie. Can you come by the nick today?’</p>
<p>That’s all Joan needs! Her familiarity with Morse’s flat forcing her to dip her fingers in ink will feed the Cowley Station gossip mill… Dismayed, she recoils slightly, and Jim adds perceptively, ‘Ask for me. Won’t raise a fuss.’</p>
<p>Joan thanks him profusely and announces that she’ll come this very afternoon.</p>
<p>Without thinking, she places the fragment on the nearest chest of drawers. Venturing a cautious step into the wreckage, Joan thinks again and freezes on the spot, fearful to trample something that did escape obliteration, while Jim Strange surveys the damage disgustedly. ‘What d’they nick?’</p>
<p>The overturned cupboards and ransacked shelves display ruined crockery, books with torn-off pages, and LPs carefully stomped upon with their slipcases lacerated in several pieces. Crumpled shirts have been meticulously thrown out from the drawers; some of them even covered with fresh food stains. The cleaner will have enough to do for a fortnight. It’s a disheartening mess, or rather, a good imitation of a war zone.</p>
<p>‘Radio. Record player—,’ Morse assesses drily.</p>
<p>
  <i>Everything that made life liveable for Endeavour in his dowdy cubbyhole of a bedsit torn away from him. His music. His poetry, his books.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Evasion from the harshness of his work; from the heartbreaks of his life.</i>
</p>
<p>‘—my signed Rosalind Calloway LP.’ Morse huffs a small laugh without joy. ‘Beside that, there was nothing worth taking.’</p>
<p>To her attuned ear, it sounds like ‘<i>I’m not worth taking</i>,’ and Joan’s heart breaks. Arms slightly opened, she takes an involuntary step towards Morse and his face regains some life. </p>
<p>‘Why, they smashed the place up,’ Strange comments with a shrug. He turns on his heels and there is an ominous snap in the vicinity of his feet. Morse’s cup jerks and a few coffee drops stain his fingers.</p>
<p>‘Well, can't stay on here with it like this, can you?’ Strange goes on. ‘Welcome to doss at mine till you get yourself straight.’</p>
<p>Alarm flashes across Morse’s face, but he recovers soon enough. ‘Oh, no! Thank you.’ His lips curl up derisively. ‘Thanks. I'd sooner make a start.’</p>
<p>‘Right. Well, the offer's there. Chin up, matey!’</p>
<p>Strange nods to them decisively. ‘Joan. Morse.’ and exits the room briskly, followed by the WPC who flashes them both another tiny smile as she goes out.</p>
<p>As soon as she hears the front door click shut behind them, Joan holds out her arms to Endeavour. His face scrunching up with tired distress, he hastily puts his cup of coffee on his nightstand. Coming by her side with a quick and careless stride, he reaches out for her. His arms lock around her waist, pulling her closer than she expected. Tilting his head, he settles his brow on hers, while she tightens reflexively her hold on him, a wave of protectiveness engulfing her. It’s at some point during the next five minutes that Morse whispers in her hair, ‘You’re here.’</p>
<p>Slowly, Joan feels the tension stiffening him ebb out as she rubs her hands lightly across his back and shoulders. Endeavour stretches his neck backwards and heaves a great sigh.</p>
<p>When he extricates himself from her arms, Joan crouches on the floor and begins to sort out the nearby wreckage, finding some LPs concealed under a dark blue jumper and a few paperbacks. Pulling them out of their slipcases, she finds out that these records are unharmed, except for the one Strange apparently walked onto, ‘<i>Classics Up to Date by James Last.</i>’</p>
<p>When she checks it out, an undefinable expression swiftly crosses Morse’s eyes.</p>
<p>‘Nope,’ she announces, ‘but those ones made it.’</p>
<p>‘Small mercies,’ Morse replies so bitterly that her impulse to rise and hold him again fades.</p>
<p>Maybe she should get practical with her support, instead.</p>
<p>Gathering survivors—books and LPs—and checking the nearby flat surface, Joan’s fingers brush the mantel and encounter a snapshot. She props it against the wall. It is of a young boy holding hands with a dark-haired young woman. The slight blurriness of the photograph doesn’t hide the tenderness in the gaze of the woman or the pride of the boy looking up at her. The boy Endeavour’s eyes are the same: wide, eager, with a hint of melancholy and an intelligent animation.</p>
<p>She peers intently at it, upset by this picture of past innocence grown into adult bitterness. <i>What happened to him during all these years?</i> She’d never quite reflected on it. Is that shallowness on her part, not wondering about his past sorrows? Or merely her awareness of Morse’s tight, protective defences?</p>
<p>‘Your mother?’ Joan asks gently, her forefinger lightly outlining the black and white face.</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ Morse says tersely, and reaches out to take the snapshot gently from her hands. He doesn’t look at it, but goes to lock it up in the top drawer of his nightstand. When he comes back into the main room, his face is a blank slate.</p>
<p>Joan says tentatively, ‘She looks…sweet. And so very proud of you.’</p>
<p>‘She was,’ he confirms. ‘Tenderness…Her only legacy.’ He hunches lower, and a veil of sadness shrouds him like an intangible mist. ‘At least my father was more practical,’ he smirks, spitting out with savage irony, ‘He taught me to shoot to kill, as befits a man.’</p>
<p>‘Endeavour!’ Joan exclaims.</p>
<p>Seeing her bafflement, he elaborates drily, ‘If “<i>no legacy is so rich as honesty</i>,’ he had none to give, merely violence and debts. He left only “<i>sweets for the sweet</i>”.’</p>
<p>At her movement towards him, his hands find shelter in his trouser pockets, as if to signify physical contact is prohibited between them, and he adds with detachment, ‘I also inherited another useless trinket from her. Valuable, some say, “<i>All the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto it</i>”.’</p>
<p>Morse scowls, seeing her look of dismay, ‘Don’t worry; I didn’t keep it here. I never thought it would be of any use to me anymore, anyway.’</p>
<p>‘Well...’</p>
<p>There is no use talking to him when he’s in such a huff. Besides, now’s not the time to try to decipher one of his literary riddles. This one can wait.</p>
<p>Efficiently, Joan tidies up the kitchen corner. It’s an easy task. Nearly all the crockery will have to be thrown away. Morse’s left with some pans and a kettle, and a few dirty doo-dahs he had forgotten in the sleeping alcove. Of his former collection of bottles, none are left, apart from the glassy and empty corpses in the bin, but again, he seemed to be drinking a lot less lately. At least, that’s no loss.</p>
<p>Books are now piling up on the coffee table; some covers look much the worse for wear, but they are still containing the proper number of pages. The burglars probably threw them away randomly, trying to find something hidden behind them, Morse explains. Little by little, the flat is taking on a tidier but emptier appearance, not that it brimmed full of personality before.</p>
<p>‘Such bad luck!’ Joan laments. ‘It’s so unfair!’</p>
<p>‘Maybe.’ Morse’s voice is a little smothered with stooping to gather his scattered clothes. Without ceremony, he dumps them on his bed in a jumbled heap, and keeps busy with broom and dustpan, gathering the broken bits lying around.</p>
<p>‘What?’</p>
<p>‘Maybe someone's trying to tell me something,’ he affirms, his chin jerking upwards.</p>
<p>He’s lost her here. ‘Like what?’ she snaps.</p>
<p>‘“<i>Go west, young man.</i>” Or south. London, maybe.’ </p>
<p>If Endeavour was sullen before, now he’s properly grim.</p>
<p>‘London?’ Joan exclaims. The shirt she was folding drops back on the bed. <i>So Tintagel House, it is</i>.</p>
<p>Focused on his demonstration, Morse clarifies, ‘A man might lose himself there.’</p>
<p>‘And you want to get lost?’</p>
<p>His eyes follow her as she crosses the room and comes to his side. Even if they are a breath’s away from each other, Joan has never sensed such remoteness between them.</p>
<p>‘<i>I don’t want to lose you!</i>’ The ardent appeal surges on her lips, but instead she says diffidently, ‘There’s nothing to keep you here? No one?’</p>
<p>He frowns at her and sidesteps out of her reach, taking his time to throw the content of his dustpan into the bin. Hanging upon his answer, suddenly, Joan shivers with the urge to go to him and to shake him so hard his teeth rattle. Rolled up into one, his lost puppy look and his arrogance, worthy of an insufferable sod, inflame in her antagonistic emotions which demand some release.</p>
<p>When he finally speaks, her last hope plummets to the ground.</p>
<p>‘No family, no,’ he replies in a despondent voice.</p>
<p>Joan doesn’t like where it’s leading. <i>A pure hazard, a common burglary, would push him away from Oxford, drifting and desolate? He would give up on her, just like that?</i></p>
<p>
  <i>Is he retreating into a corner, already licking his wounds, because she implied that she needed time? If so, it’s…disturbingly weird. It’s not as if he didn’t let her set the pace before.</i>
</p>
<p>‘What if there were?’ she flings back without realising what she’s saying.</p>
<p>Her retort has an immediate effect. He whirls around, a sudden flicker kindling in his eyes. And out of the blue, astonishingly, he blurts out, ‘Marry me.’</p>
<p>Joan gasps and takes a couple of steps backward. Her elbow bangs into the mantel, and she presses harder against it when she realises she can’t go farther back. Her head rings empty and she feels dizzy and the ledge is unyielding against her flesh, and cold, too.</p>
<p>She inhales a huge gulp of air, but it’s not enough to assist her to keep breathing. ‘Endeavour…’</p>
<p>What can she say? Perhaps the truth will suffice.</p>
<p>‘Endeavour, I—It’s too…’</p>
<p>
  <i>Early?</i>
</p>
<p>She doesn’t <i>really</i> know him, and he doesn’t know her either. Still, they <i>do</i>, for all the significant, essential things.</p>
<p>Her only certainty is that she <i>does</i> love him, even though she has no idea <i>why</i>. And why <i>he</i> does. ‘<i>Like the out-bursting of a trodden star</i>,’ this verse Endeavour once whispered to her finds a new life, blossoming, bursting afresh with a fiery pulsation. And the circumstances in which he said it, and how he did—his touch, his eyes, his voice—make her flush deep crimson at the memory.</p>
<p>Can they commit—really commit—to each other without that certainty of <i>who</i> they are? She’s barely scratched the surface of his complex, contrary layers. Would a lifetime be enough for that exploring, anyway?</p>
<p>One certainty remains, though. She loves him, even if she’s never told him properly—but then, neither has he. Those three scary—terrifying—words have never been spoken aloud between them. Merely hinted at.</p>
<p>
  <i>Impractical?</i>
</p>
<p>They can’t make a marriage work right now. Not comfortably off, anyway. Endeavour’s on a constable’s salary and she has no fixed income. Shouldn’t they wait awhile? Find better job opportunities for them both? Balance them properly?</p>
<p>As much as she wants to jump into this without checking the water level, and immerse herself in it, it’s too precious to bungle by being too precipitous.</p>
<p>
  <i>Hasty?</i>
</p>
<p>Besides, the real crux is…Why this frantic haste? Isn’t Endeavour jumping the gun? It’s as though he couldn’t help himself.</p>
<p>He’s acting as if he feared that she’d bolt and leave him, scampering away as though the devil himself was after her. On second thoughts, he’s been trying at the same time to push her away and to secure her to him. </p>
<p>
  <i>Why?</i>
</p>
<p>She exclaims out loud she knows not what, while Morse swallows loudly.</p>
<p>Joan’s muddled thoughts swirl like an out of control merry-go-round, all its lights blinking in flashy hues; she tries to select the right one, taking instead each one in its turn, turning it over and over, examining carefully its rough edges and polished glitter, so she can place it in its proper slot. Like a jigsaw puzzle whose overall pattern she ignores. </p>
<p>But the process is painstakingly slow, and the trepidation in Endeavour’s eyes is excruciating, and the carrousel spins in a blur, and before Joan has even begun to sort out them all—to say nothing of uttering them, the phone rings.</p>
<p>This is downright, utterly, ludicrously absurd! Is their relationship turning into a succession of missed opportunities, an infuriating deficiency of time, and miscommunications?</p>
<p>The sharp, persistent ring gusts persistently into the room, stiffening Joan, still huddled against the mantel, and Morse, hand half-raised in mute appeal, body poised as if he were preparing for a leap. They exchange a baffled look, neither daring to break the curse that fixes them in their respective spot. Slowly, Morse’s expectation dwindles, his heavy breathing stills and his stricken eyes shelter beneath his eyelids.</p>
<p>Despite the disorder, the phone is still at its former allocated place, on a now almost bare shelf. Slowly, Joan shakes the spell binding her to Morse and reaches for it. ‘Could be work,’ she explains, turning an abrupt grimace upon him.</p>
<p>‘Couldn't be anything else,’ he replies grimly.</p>
<p>Gingerly, lips compressed, she seizes the phone, then unhooks the receiver and holds it out to him. Still, Endeavour doesn’t make a move to take it, his intent gaze focused on her face as if he could decipher the answer she’s not sure she even knows.</p>
<p><i>What can he see in her eyes? Love? Confusion? Uncertainty? Fear?</i> She’s no longer sure. </p>
<p>Whatever it is, the sight isn’t pleasant. Defeated, Morse turns his head away from her. However, he isn’t quick enough. Joan sees a betraying gathering of moisture in his eyes.</p>
<p>Faraway, a voice in the receiver expresses muted surprised gibberish, and Morse finally extends his hand to take it from her.</p>
<p>‘Morse!’ he declares. His voice is shaking ever so slightly, but as he focuses on the unseen speaker’s voice, he takes a new hold of himself.</p>
<p>Work it is. His facial reactions to whatever is said on the other side confirm it. His face falls and he explains to her in a whisper, ‘Strange. I have to—’</p>
<p>‘Alright,’ she interjects.</p>
<p>Will it always be the same? At each essential crossroad in their lives, will the entire world intrude on them and put sticks in the wheels? Smashing each morsel of beauty they managed to safeguard and make their own?</p>
<p>She heaves a crushed sigh and retraces her steps towards the doorway. As she nears it, Endeavour’s voice stops her progress, speaking hastily into the receiver, ‘Can you wait just a minute?’ </p>
<p>She pauses and looks over her shoulder. He’s still standing on the same spot, holding the phone, the receiver cradled against his chest, muffling their conversation from eavesdroppers. ‘Where are you going?’</p>
<p>‘To work,’ she says, disconcerted. ‘Miss Frazil gave me the morning off, but I’ve got things to do, too.’</p>
<p>She sees the corner of his mouth spasm, but he merely looks expectantly at her. On impulse, she comes back into the room, kisses her fingertips and brushes them caressingly on his lips. The faintest hint of pressure answers her kiss as he purses his lips under her touch. The tender gesture, however, doesn’t assuage the apprehension lurking in his eyes.</p>
<p>‘See you,’ Joan whispers, trailed by his helpless stare, as she walks backwards to the door. ‘I’ll call you.’</p>
<p>At least, from the present debacle, Joan secured a delayed answer. Even if she still hasn’t the slightest idea of what it’s going to be.<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><b>‘<i>Like the out-bursting of a trodden star</i>’</b> is quoted from Thomas Lovell Beddoes’s <a href="http://phantomwooer.org/blog/text/the-second-brother-act-ii/">The Second Brother</a>:<br/>‘<i>[…] Love? Do I love? I walk<br/>Within the brilliance of another's thought,<br/>As in a glory. I was dark before,<br/>as Venus' chapel in the black of night:<br/>But there was something holy in the darkness,<br/>Softer and not so thick as the other where;<br/>And as rich moonlight may be to the blind,<br/>Unconsciously consoling. Then love came,<br/>Like the out-bursting of a trodden star,<br/>And what before was hueless and unseen<br/>Now shows me a divinity, like that<br/>Which, raised to life out of the snowy rock,<br/>Surpass’d mankind’s creation, and repaid<br/>Heaven for Pandora.</i>’</p>
<p><b>‘<i>No legacy is so rich as honesty</i>’</b> is a quote from Shakespeare’s <i>All's Well That Ends Well</i>, Act III, Scene 3 (‘… <i>Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl: the honour of a maid is her name; and no legacy is so rich as honesty</i>.’)</p>
<p><b>‘<i>Sweets [for] the sweet</i>’</b> is an intended misquotation of the Queen’s farewell to Ophelia, when spreading funeral bouquets on her grave. (‘<i>Sweets to the sweet, farewell!</i>’ <i>Hamlet</i>, Act 5, scene 1.)</p>
<p><b>‘<i>All the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto it</i>’</b> is a partial quote of <i>Proverbs 3:15, King James Bible version. (‘<i>She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her</i>.’)</i><br/><br/><br/><b>Comments? Thoughts? Ideas about Joan's decision?  I'd be very (VERY) happy (overjoyed) to read them!</b><br/><i>The next (and last) chapter will be posted on Wednesday.</i></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Tower</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
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</div><br/><p>On Friday late afternoon, when Win runs into Joan, it’s at the Burridge’s bedding department, of all places.</p>
<p>Joan is bent double, peering down at the label glued to a double bed and working out the payment by instalments for a year. It makes a depressing monthly amount, if one adds to this bare necessity for a thriving married life a record player, table and chairs, armchairs and a stove. Not to mention a bigger rent. She finishes scribbling figures on her notepad, straightens up with a scowl and finds herself looking directly into the startled eyes of her mother.</p>
<p>Joan feels herself growing hot from embarrassment, and she wonders if she’s redder than Win. ‘Mum!’ she squeals. ‘It’s not…We’re not…’ <i>God, now she’s making a molehill into a mountain and putting her foot in her mouth in the excruciating process.</i></p>
<p>After her eloquent start, she grows embarrassingly silent, wondering what her mother will make of her presence at Burridge’s, at this particular department. But Win doesn’t seem to find it out of the ordinary, talking animatedly about the letter Sam sent and his latest news. Nothing that Joan doesn’t know first-hand from the three-page letter she has received, but by then, she is too relieved to have a topic she can safely discuss without skirting around the truth.</p>
<p>However, Win is more devious than her daughter gives her credit for. By dint of questions and pauses, she manages to go to the heart of the matter.</p>
<p>At that point, they are standing at the bus stop, and it’s not a topic Joan is eager to discuss in the middle of the street. No one is paying any attention to them, fortunately. At her elbow, a young woman about Joan’s age is browsing a cinema magazine. Nearby, a harassed-looking woman’s chastising her two unruly children. Farthest away, a man in a suit and tie looks around him, as if he were waiting for a bus for the first time in his life; all innocuous enough prying ears, but still…</p>
<p>‘Mum, may I drop by for tea tonight?’ Joan asks, having made up her mind. ‘Unless it’s a bother?’</p>
<p>Win had apparently waited for her question. Relieved, she beams at her daughter. ‘No bother at all. Dad always says I cook for four, anyway. Come along!’</p>
<p>Joan does.</p>
<p>Giving her mother a hand in the kitchen is oddly comforting. Cooking has never been one of Joan’s favourite activities, but chopping vegetables for the beef stew Win has chosen to cook stifles her nerves. It must be the familiarity of it: culinary activities with her mother are part of her best memories. It’s as if it creates a cocoon the two of them inhabit together, cosily apart from the men of the family. This warm, comfortable sharing of repeated gestures lulls Joan’s present disquiet and, as usual, provokes confidences.</p>
<p>Without really meaning to, Joan explains most of the latest developments to Win; those material aspects she believes will be of primary interest to her.</p>
<p>‘Mum, if I said “yes,” we’d probably have to move to London, on small wages,’ she says, ending her tale.</p>
<p>Win <i>hmmmm</i>s in answer. She doesn’t sound that adverse to the idea.</p>
<p>‘Is that what you want for me?’ Joan exclaims. She’d never have assumed that her Mum would let her fly so far from the nest.</p>
<p>‘Why not, for a while? We'd have been so glad of a place of our own, your father and me.’</p>
<p>Joan raises her eyes from the carrots she’s slicing. Her mum looks so content with her lot that it takes a lot of imagination trying to visualise her as a young woman willingly entering a new life with even less opportunities than Joan has right now. Moreover, she has to admit that Win’s sense of adventure was apparently greater than her own.</p>
<p>This is so confusing. Some weeks ago, Joan felt ready to leave it all behind her, to secrete herself into the farthest corner of the universe, and now, offered a fresh new start with the man she loves, she’s balking and nit-picking. <i>What’s come over her?</i></p>
<p>While adding garlic over the vegetables and beef frying in the pan, Win muses reminiscently, ‘You're too young to remember, but our first two years of married life after Dad came back from the war, we lived with Nan and Granddad over the ironmonger's.’</p>
<p>Joan doesn’t remember that time. But she can’t begin to conceive the lack of privacy and the hardship of it all.</p>
<p>Unerringly, Win goes on, ‘When we moved into the prefab, Dad said that we'd won the pools.’</p>
<p>The reproach is implicit: isn’t Joan too spoiled? <i>But it’s so different, now</i>. She knows her mother wants the best for her, but it’s growingly obvious that they’re not on the same page.</p>
<p>‘Mum, I'm not—<i>we</i>’re not you and Dad. We wish… I wish—’ </p>
<p>The sentence is cut short when Joan struggles to express it and fails. Uppermost in her mind, is floating the notion that she doesn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps: quiet, submissive, doing her husband’s bidding and not even hazarding her opinion. When has she ever heard her Mum object to <i>anything</i> her Dad said?</p>
<p>Win stirs the vegetables and adds the last of the ingredients. Then Worcestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar joins them. A delicious smell begins to waft in the kitchen, waking up Joan’s taste buds. Win goes on with the next steps efficiently, then covers the stew with a lid and puts it into the oven.</p>
<p>‘All done,’ she announces. ‘No, Joan, you’ll do the washing up later. By the way, the phone call was Dad’s; he’ll be in later than usual, and I told him to invite Morse, too.’</p>
<p>‘Solved the case?’ Joan asks with an eager lilt in her tone, as she unties her apron.</p>
<p>If they have, it means that her long overdue chat with Morse will take place soon. Not tonight, under her parents’ noses, but <i>soon</i>.</p>
<p>Win folds her apron on a chair, then leads the way into the living room. ‘Sort of. Someone did the killer in. They didn’t see it coming. Lots of paperwork to do now, so they won’t be here for a while,’ she answers.</p>
<p>This is the first time her mother has volunteered to divulge so much information about a case. Did Joan pass some kind of invisible boundary? All of a sudden, Joan understands that she did, and the niggling idea that a child may not know all what transpires between husband and wife also sneaks its way into her brain.</p>
<p>Plopping down on the couch, Joan plucks up the courage to ask her mother, ‘Why did you want to be a copper’s wife?’</p>
<p>‘I didn’t,’ states Win quietly. Seeing the surprise flashing across her daughter’s face, she elaborates. ‘I wanted to be <i>your father</i>’s wife.’</p>
<p>‘I see.’</p>
<p>‘No questions about it. Between having a copper for a husband and getting another husband…’</p>
<p>‘So you had to make do,’ Joan suggests.</p>
<p>‘No. I fully supported him in what he had to do. Still do.’</p>
<p>It’s not what she says, but the way Win says it. It suddenly strikes Joan that this subdued, kindly woman is the true core of their family. She may not have her husband’s energetic authority, but her temperate presence is an essential part of what makes the Thursdays’ household such a warm place to be; she’s its heart.</p>
<p>‘Even—even with the risk that someday—someone…’ Joan stammers, the words sticking to her throat.</p>
<p>‘Say it, Joan. That someday, someone would ring saying that Dad wouldn’t come back in the evening?’ Win’s tone is firm, and she says the ominous sentence as if she had phrased it already a million times inside her head.</p>
<p>Joan inhales sharply. ‘Yeah. Something like that.’ </p>
<p>She remembers Endeavour’s devastatingly washed-out face on the Crawley General pillow. Wonders if that’s a sight she should get used to. Remembers her panic when Claudine gave her the news. Remembers also the dismal minutes in the Wessex Bank when neither Endeavour nor she knew if they would live more than the few minutes ahead. The terror. The uncertainty. </p>
<p>Does she have the fortitude to live this all over again? Wouldn’t she be a burden to Endeavour instead of taking her share?</p>
<p>Joan lets go of the lip she’s worrying and forces her hands still. Her fingers twinge from twisting one another. She raises her eyes. Her mother’s eyes are fixed on her intently, with a very kind expression. Surely, her inner debate is one Win already went through, and resolved to her best satisfaction, many years ago.</p>
<p>‘I never wanted to be a copper’s wife,’ Joan admits in an uncomfortable whisper. ‘I don’t know if I can.’ Misery makes her lips tremble. She feels no closer to any kind of easing of her qualms.</p>
<p>‘I never did…’ reaffirms Win. ‘Still, here I am.’</p>
<p>It sounds so simple when she says it. But now, Joan understands what that irrevocability must have cost her in anguish and indecision.</p>
<p>Suddenly, a wave of revolt engulfs her. This soul-searching is all the more absurd since Joan knows that she could still escape a similar fate! Didn’t Morse tell her about a teaching job?</p>
<p>‘But, Mum, Morse is wasted as a DC! He’s made for greater things!’ Joan opposes.</p>
<p>‘Maybe, but police work is his present choice. And you should respect it.’</p>
<p>‘I do,’ protests Joan. ‘I’ve seen first-hand what good it does, remember? But…I don’t want to live in fear every day of my life. I—I’m not… I’m—’</p>
<p><i>She’s a coward, that’s what she is</i>. The unsaid word resonates in the room until it is picked up by Win.</p>
<p>‘No, you’re not. It’s alright to be afraid,’ she says quietly. Seeing her daughter’s rebellious look, she volunteers, ‘I am, often.’</p>
<p>‘And what does Dad say?’</p>
<p>‘Nothing. He doesn’t know.’ Win utters a tiny laugh without significance. ‘And if Dad guesses, he doesn’t tell.’</p>
<p>Joan’s eyes widen briefly in surprise, while methodically, her mother begins to crease her skirt over her knees, in a nervous gesture. She hesitates, and then insists, ‘No use telling him, he has enough to stomach already.’</p>
<p>She raises her eyes and her naked gaze bores into her daughter’s. ‘I’ve got to protect him, somehow. That’s why work stays outside…’ She smiles apologetically. ‘—most of the time.’</p>
<p>‘The Hat Stand Rule?’ Joan asks, guessing the answer. Why doesn’t it surprise her? It makes sense, when she reflects on it. She’s seen and even touched what police work sometimes entails. And not merely during the bank heist.</p>
<p>‘It’s not only to protect you and Sam, it’s to protect him. He has to get out of it sometimes.’</p>
<p>Joan lowers her head, ashamed. She’s been selfish, childish; eager to know about the latest case that her Dad was involved with. Not so very different, after all, from people reading the gorier news items published in <i>The Oxford Mail</i>, when she reflects on it. It wasn’t about <i>people</i>, then. It was about a story and some excitement bursting into her daily routine. Like at the pictures.</p>
<p>How could she be so shallow and not know it?</p>
<p>But now, it’s different. It’s about Morse and being here for him. Sharing it.</p>
<p>Like she flung out in defiance to them, they’re not her parents. And Endeavour obviously wants—needs to share part of it, so they’ll have to establish their own rules, by trials and errors, if need be.</p>
<p>‘I understand,’ Joan says slowly.</p>
<p>‘You didn’t, as a child.’ There is no reproach in her Mum’s voice, just a statement of fact, and suddenly, Joan feels guilty of all the trouble she must have caused her, unwittingly.</p>
<p>‘I’m sorry,’ she says sincerely. ‘I didn’t understand.’</p>
<p>There’s nothing but acceptance in her mother’s eyes, as she smiles up at her. ‘You’re so stubborn. Like your father. When you’ve got an idea in your head…’</p>
<p>Joan smiles back. ‘I agree. Sam takes more after you.’</p>
<p>‘Some of us have got to be sensible. Right?’</p>
<p>Joan’s eyes sparkle with repressed laughter. ‘Right.’</p>
<p>Wordlessly, she shifts closer to her mother and squeezes her hand.</p>
<p><br/>
</p><hr/>
<p><br/>
</p>
<p>The police Jag pulls up in front of the Thursday’s house and stays put for the longest time.</p>
<p>That Joan happens to see it arrive is completely fortuitous, as she’s absently gazing through the lace-curtained half-opened window of the kitchen while washing the cutlery. Wondering why her father and Morse don’t get out, she puts away the soft sponge in the kitchen sink, dries her hands and steps outside.</p>
<p>When she reaches the curb, the heated discussion—pantomimed behind the closed car windows—becomes patent. Endeavour, still seated before the wheel, is staring obstinately in front of him, with clenched jaw and tightened lips, while his Guv’nor is scowling and nodding curtly to prove his point. If her Dad has seen her walking down the garden path, he makes no sign of it.</p>
<p>By the look of things, all of Fred Thursday’s arguments are blunted by Morse’s contemptuous obstinacy, so Joan takes matters in hands. She walks around the boot, swiftly bends down and unexpectedly opens the door on the driver side. The clanking of the handle cuts off Fred Thursday’s diatribe in mid-word and her obstinate boyfriend raises startled eyes at her with something akin to flabbergasted frustration.</p>
<p>‘Hello! So comfy that you’ll stay here all evening?’ Joan begins with a honeyed tone. ‘We made beef stew with dumplings. Mum’ll be really peeved if you don’t come in and eat it.’ <i>And so will I</i>, her gaze also implies.</p>
<p>Her Dad considers her with approval and picks up the thread. ‘Come on, lad! Won’t do to keep Win waiting.’</p>
<p>Without ado, he steps out of the Jag and walks towards the entrance of his house where his wife is now expecting them, the straight line of his back, a silent demand to follow him.</p>
<p>Watching from afar her parents quickly pecking on their doorstep, Joan hears Endeavour shifting in the car. Then, along with an exasperated sigh, his clothes rustle as he slowly gets out. The door is flung back, and the lock snaps shut. A faint shuffling on the pavement confirms that the reluctant pedestrian is now standing next to her. She turns around, feeling her parents’ scrutiny upon them.</p>
<p>Morse hasn’t even tried to greet her…more affectionately, and she wonders if he’s just shy, dead tired or embarrassed by their faraway audience. With an effort, she decides that’s a worry for another hour.</p>
<p>Close up, Joan realises Endeavour’s light beige coat is covered with dust. Moreover, a button tries desperately to yield to gravity by losing the thin thread securing it to the fabric. Morse follows her surprised stare and brushes up rather ineffectively over his arms and torso.</p>
<p>‘Had a tumble?’ she guesses.</p>
<p>His mouth stretches in a half-apologetic smile. ‘Sort of. Part of—’</p>
<p>‘Don’t tell me that it’s part of the job,’ she interrupts quickly.</p>
<p>This excuse’s getting old. At this rate of mishaps, he’s rather unlucky or much too enthusiastic. Or putting others’ welfare before his. Remembering the events in the Wessex Bank, it surely must be the latter.</p>
<p>Instead of debating the question, he chooses to tread unhurriedly towards the house as if walking on hot coals. There’s something wrong with him, Joan realises. He seems a little wobbly and curiously tense, a strain that seems to have nothing to do with his previous divergence of opinions with her Dad. And he’s walking with a slight limp.</p>
<p>When Joan catches up with him, another reason of his discomfort appears: on his left side, coming from his hair line, at the parting of his hair, a faint discoloured reddish streak blends with the pallor of his skin.</p>
<p>Her breath hitching, Joan halts his progress with a pressure on his arm. She reaches for him, and carefully pushing back his hair, uncovers a superficial wound still oozing blood but on its way to drying. As his hands swiftly dislodge hers, Joan also notices that they are scraped.</p>
<p>‘Alright,’ she says with commendable calm. ‘Inside you go!’</p>
<p>Noting his grimace, she adds, ‘Does it hurt much?’</p>
<p>‘No. It’s just a scratch.’</p>
<p>It’s not. He’s much paler than usual, freckles standing out on his skin.</p>
<p>‘What happened?’ she insists. Endeavour merely rolls his eyes up and moves his front foot forward. However, Joan’s grip on his arm prevents him to go farther. ‘And don’t quote the Hat Stand Rule to me, we’re still outside!’ she hisses.</p>
<p>For an answer, he makes a show assessing the street around them. They are still standing some feet away from the house. Inside, through the open door, Joan can hear her mother fussing about her father. Obviously, the Rule doesn’t apply to everyone in the same way.</p>
<p>‘Technically, yes,’ Endeavour finally agrees, with an exasperating smile.</p>
<p>‘I won’t stand for that nonsense; you do know that, I hope?’ Joan retorts heatedly, before she remembers her new found resolution. She bites her lips on her next intended retort, a sincere apology dawning in her eyes for her outburst.</p>
<p>Again, Morse gives her a tiny smile, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. ‘Indeed, but <i>pas devant les parents</i>,’ he smirks.</p>
<p>‘What?’ <i>That’s not the time to quote God knows what!</i></p>
<p>‘Not before your parents, though,’ he repeats.</p>
<p>‘No, not on their home turf. On ours, however…’</p>
<p>His smile stretches noticeably wider.</p>
<p>‘So?’ Joan insists. If Morse believes that he can dismiss her worries so easily, he’s in for a surprise. ‘Bramford again?’</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ he admits.</p>
<p>‘And…?’</p>
<p>‘I can’t tell you.’</p>
<p>‘Can’t you really?’ <i>Must she pry every word one by one from his mouth?</i></p>
<p>‘It’s classified,’ he says, looking at her squarely. </p>
<p>
  <i>Classified? In what mess…?</i>
</p>
<p>‘Dorothea’s going to <i>love</i> that,’ she says instead, furiously. ‘The power plant? Oh, of course, you can’t even answer <i>that</i>!’</p>
<p>‘I don’t doubt for a moment that they’ll provide front page material to her. Not the truth, though,’ he ventures cynically, going forward, and then he winces, almost stumbling on the doorstep.</p>
<p>‘What’s wrong?’ Joan cries out.</p>
<p>‘Leg,’ Endeavour mumbles with a hiss of pain. ‘DeBryn told me that it might—’</p>
<p>His balance falters further and he nearly falls against the door frame. Hurriedly, Joan holds him upright awkwardly, crying out as she does so, ‘Dad!’</p>
<p>Fred Thursday rushes through, takes rapid stock of the situation, and supports Morse on his other side. Between them, they help him to the couch in the living room, where he sags with an involuntary grunt.</p>
<p>The ache must be as fierce as it had been sudden. Morse curls up protectively over it, both hands pressed hard on his upper right thigh, near his hip, while Joan watches in distressed silence. </p>
<p>After a hurried and quiet consultation with her mother, she springs up the stairs to the bathroom. Opening the medicine cabinet, Joan finds painkillers, a bottle of iodine, pads of cotton wool and plaster.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Win has proffered a glass of water to Morse. When Joan offers him the pills, he swallows them without demur and lets her clean and patch the wound on his brow.</p>
<p>‘Dark yellow clashes with your hair,’ Joan jokes, stopping the bottle of iodine.</p>
<p>‘Not quite the “Summer of Love” palette recommendation?’ Morse asks deprecatingly.</p>
<p>‘Nope. But you usually aim for the respectable look, anyway.’</p>
<p>‘Nothing wrong with it,’ Fred Thursday says gruffly. ‘How are you, lad?’</p>
<p>‘Fine, sir,’ asserts Morse, visibly lying. ‘I just bumped my leg when I—’</p>
<p>Thursday’s and Morse’s reciprocal mute exchange recounts an untold story of alarm, shared triumph, and overcome odds. Events their womenfolk won’t learn, unless unashamedly edited. <i>Classified</i>, Endeavour said.</p>
<p>‘Why don’t you rest for a minute, while it takes effect?’ On that recommendation, Fred Thursday exits the room, taking Win with him and leaving them alone together.</p>
<p>Sitting close to Endeavour on the couch on his good side, Joan shifts closer to him. Her hand searches for his and doesn’t let it go. Gently, his fingers close upon hers.</p>
<p>‘How many times did I tell you’d better come inside pronto?’ Joan chides. ‘You should have gone in right away. You’d have crashed on the couch instead of hurting yourself further.’</p>
<p>‘Once was enough,’ he admits. His chest’s heaving in and out as he tries to control the pain.</p>
<p>‘You see. Better do it at once. Less painful for all concerned.’ Her head nestles in the crook of his shoulder and she lets out a tiny sigh, as he holds her closer. ‘What happened? Explosion in a tower?’ </p>
<p>Under her cheek, Joan feels his start and the faint tremor that flashes across his body.</p>
<p>‘What’s this talk of explosion?’ Morse queries in a suspiciously flat tone.</p>
<p>‘No one’s talking of explosions, except the local witch, Mrs. Chattox.’ Her explanation doesn’t lessen his unease, so she clarifies, ‘—a few days ago.’</p>
<p>‘Chattox?’ Suddenly alert, he straightens up, supressing a grunt of pain, and grasps her wrist with his right hand. ‘What do you know of Mrs. Chattox?’</p>
<p>‘Nothing much. She’s a card reader and…she’s very accurate. According to my colleague Linda, at least!’</p>
<p>He suddenly relaxes and slumps back on the couch. ‘Is she?’</p>
<p>‘Theoretically. In my reading, she saw fools, lovers upside down and unlucky in love, and explosions. A tower blowing up or other such stuff,’ Joan says airily.</p>
<p>She looks up at him, as alarm obscures his face with a fleeting mask, one he blinks away fast enough. <i>Surely, he doesn’t believe in this nonsense?</i></p>
<p>‘Was it a tower you fell from, seeing that you were in the neighbourhood?’ Joan probes, without really expecting that her bait will lure naked Truth out of the well.</p>
<p>She sneaks a look at him from the corner of her eyes. He doesn’t seem to find her vague allusions weird or surprising, but his lopsided smile stretches along with a decidedly cynical glint in his eyes.</p>
<p><i>Yeah, he doesn’t believe it, although it may hold a sour irony for him.</i> She doesn’t suppose she’ll ever learn what it is.</p>
<p>Still feeling her way into the bizarre twists and turns of their conversation, Joan adds, half-jesting, ‘Nothing about turf tips or rich long-lost uncles from America.’</p>
<p>‘Not that accurate for you, then?’ Endeavour says dourly as if there were something to consider about her Tarot cards disclosure.</p>
<p>‘Nope.’</p>
<p>He doesn’t elaborate further as Win comes into the room and asks him if he feels well enough to walk into the dining room.</p>
<p>‘I’m fine,’ Morse answers, so the touchy subject is dropped until it’s time to leave.</p>
<p>It’s decided; Thursday will drive Joan and Endeavour back to their respective flats and keep the Jag tonight; there’s some use to being a DI. At least tonight Morse won’t have to hobble back home after taking the car to the nick garage.</p>
<p>As Joan’s buttoning up her coat, half hidden behind the door of the living room, her Dad’s voice reaches her ears, retorting to Morse’s in an earnest whisper. ‘It wasn’t your fault, lad.’ </p>
<p>They are both standing next to the front door. Curious, she tiptoes closer. Joan can’t see her father’s profile very well from her present position. However, she can make out his concern. Of Morse, only the stiffened nape of his neck is in evidence, the wall lamp casting bronze glitters into his tangled hair.</p>
<p>‘I should have seen it coming,’ Endeavour counters dejectedly. ‘Forewarned is forearmed.’</p>
<p>The answering silence prompts Morse to elaborate, ‘She told me so herself, when she drew the “<i>Death</i>” card.’</p>
<p>‘Could be a coincidence,’ ventures Thursday.</p>
<p>‘Probably not. The cards were rigged or something.’ Endeavour tugs pensively on his earlobe, his brow furrowing. ‘The very same cards came up when Mrs. Chattox “read” them to Joan.’ </p>
<p>He turns his head sharply away, and Joan glimpses his hurt, guilty expression before he stares down at his feet. ‘I should have seen it; it was too bloody obvious a parapraxis—’ After a short pause, he supplements, ‘—her subconsciously deliberate mistake.’</p>
<p>‘You couldn’t have known,’ her Dad says firmly.</p>
<p>‘I should have guessed…’ Morse’s tone keeps shovelling stones of blame over himself. If he’s not careful, he’ll be buried alive under the weight.</p>
<p>‘Can’t cry over spilt milk. We weren’t close enough. It happens.’</p>
<p>‘It shouldn’t end like this! It shouldn’t—’ </p>
<p>Morse hastily checks himself when he shifts his weight on his good leg, and leaning against the wall, sees that Joan is lurking around the entryway, her mother behind her.</p>
<p>He moves on to safer topics, thanking Win for her hospitality and cooking and assuring Thursday that he’ll be rested enough tomorrow to drive, so his Governor won’t have to pick him up. Needless to say, he doesn’t convince him in the least. Dad pulls rank and that’s it.</p>
<p>And during their drive back, he is obviously still in pain, and not merely from his leg, so Joan refrains from inquiring about his card reading, especially with her father in the driver seat.</p>
<p>Besides, Win’s sentence has been driven home. ‘<i>I’ve got to protect him, somehow.</i>’ </p>
<p>It’s high time she does just that. </p>
<p>Even if she is dying of curiosity.</p>
<p><br/>
</p><hr/>
<p><br/>
</p>
<p><i>The Oxford Mail</i>’s headline ‘<i>Fire at Bramford contained</i>’ doesn’t help Joan any to get closer to the truth.</p>
<p>And the news item isn’t any more helpful. It merely states: ‘<i>A small fire in a storage area was quickly contained by Bramford's own fire brigade, with the site suffering only the most minor damage. No members of staff were injured and there was never at any time a danger to the public.</i>’</p>
<p>When she asks Dorothea about it, she is treated to a heated diatribe about the freedom of the press and the need to present accurate information to the public. But while it does a lot to document her awareness of the principles under which <i>The Oxford Mail</i> operates, it adds next to nothing to Joan’s knowledge of her Dad’s or Morse’s goings-on on this same day.</p>
<p>However, there must have been some heavy doings in it, because both Morse and her Dad will be awarded a medal at Buckingham Palace for their actions.</p>
<p>‘For Gallantry.’</p>
<p>Joan’s imagination goes on overload.</p>
<p><br/>
</p><hr/>
<p><br/>
</p>
<p>Mum has unearthed her best ‘Sunday hat,’ the one she puts on for great occasions, like weddings and family reunions when she wants to impress her posh stuck-up second cousins. Fluffy and light blue, it goes well with her light grey coat and complements ideally the colour of her earrings. It will be perfect for ‘<i>the awarding of the George Medal to Her Majesty the Queen’s well-beloved subjects Detective Chief Inspector Frederick Albert Thursday and Detective Sergeant Endeavour Morse for Special Services in Defence of the Realm</i>.’</p>
<p>Win is as fresh as a flower and suddenly, with her sparkling eyes and barely concealed delight, the ebullient young woman Fred Thursday fell in love with springs to life for Joan.</p>
<p>Standing in the doorway of the Thursday’s house, Joan feels absurdly proud and moved by her resilient Mum, and she blows a kiss at her from afar, while she opens the rear door of the waiting taxi. Dad was right: being a copper is tough, but being a copper’s wife takes a special sort of woman.</p>
<p>She only wishes she has it in her, too. Hopefully, good genes won’t lie.</p>
<p>If her mother shines with loveliness, Joan’s not too bad herself, if she may say so herself. She considers herself in the entry mirror: the navy blue and white dress makes her appear more sedate than usual, but also more self-possessed. Orange might be the brighter shade, exciting and cheerful to boot, but the conservative one seems to channel her energy into thoughtful adulthood. There’s a lot to be said for stability and reliance, after all… Morse will most certainly agree.</p>
<p>Whilst Win is slipping into the back seat of the taxi, Fred Thursday’s fidgeting on the pavement, surveying the neighbourhood with a mounting irritation when he’s not looking at his watch.</p>
<p>‘Joan,’ he yells in her direction, and determinedly slips into the taxi. ‘Just another five minutes!’</p>
<p>It’s high time to lock up the house. Joan hovers for another second, and then pulls the doorknob towards her with reluctance.</p>
<p>Endeavour is late.</p>
<p>It’s the first time Joan has ever known him to be, and she can’t help being upset. What can be the trouble? Dad didn’t mention anything out of the ordinary, just that his leg was still bothering him some.</p>
<p>As she inserts her key into the lock to shut up the house, she hears the phone ringing inside, and she hastens to reopen the door to answer it.</p>
<p>It’s Morse.</p>
<p>He can’t come, he says tersely, not offering any kind of explanation, but only his regrets. ‘Absolute necessity,’ he merely insists.</p>
<p>Joan hangs up.</p>
<p>She envisions him, lonely in his desert of a flat. Alone with the pain which saturated his words until it dripped from the syllables.</p>
<p>Joan remembers Morse’s head bent over his engrossing crosswords puzzles; of the unguarded way he tilts it when an aria particularly moves him; of the curve of his mouth when he feels particularly tender and of the tremor that shapes it when he wants to hide it; of the persuasive lilt of his voice when he is passionate about something…or someone—about her.</p>
<p>She considers the possibility of a future blank and drab without him, where she can no longer hear his thoughts, make him laugh, feel his arms around her, protect him as she can.</p>
<p>And she understands, no, intensely realises that it’s worth it. All of it.</p>
<p>That for these so precious moments with him, for the passion they share, for the spontaneous desire blazing between them, for his pulling her out of her intellectual comfort and challenging her with new thoughts, for his laughter ringing in her ear, she would go through it all, all over again. </p>
<p>Well, to be honest, she’s not keen to go through Hell, but if that comes with the whole package, she’ll have to get used to it, and live each moment as it comes. ‘<i>Seize the day</i>,’ enjoy it to the full. Don’t waste it with egotism and fear. Life is full enough of them for her to drag Endeavour and her down with them.</p>
<p>So, Joan runs outside on the kerb and announces to her parents, over the rumble of the car’s engine, ‘Morse can’t make it. That was him on the phone.’</p>
<p>‘What do you mean, he can’t make it?’ objects Fred.</p>
<p>‘He can’t, that’s all he said,’ she repeats.</p>
<p>From the backseat of the taxi, her father’s voice rings out with exasperation, ‘I’ll give him “I can’t” when I see him.’</p>
<p>‘Well, I’ll tell him myself right away,’ says Joan. <i>Right now</i>.</p>
<p>She looks at herself. With her inner eye, she sees how she must appear to her parents: an impeccably dressed young woman, in shades of white and blue, not a hair out of place in the twist of her hair surmounted by a cocky hat.</p>
<p>But her smartness would be wasted at Buckingham Palace. There’s someone in Oxford who would, she expects, be rather gladder to see her in all her splendour. </p>
<p>A dimple peeps in her cheek as she announces, ‘I’m staying. Give my regards to the Queen! And…be good!’</p>
<p>‘Joan, you’re not coming?’ her mum asks in a puzzled voice.</p>
<p>‘She’s not,’ confirms the incoming recipient of the George Medal. He lowers the car windows and sticks his head out of it. ‘Be good to him. He’s been through a lot.’ Then, winking at his daughter, he tosses, ‘Good luck! You’ll need it!’</p>
<p>Joan waves cheerily at her parents when the car pulls away, speeding up to make up for their lateness.</p>
<p><br/>
</p><hr/>
<p><br/>
</p>
<p>As it happens, it is the same taxi which picks her up later. The driver seems to find it hilarious and whiles away the time it takes him to reach her destination with jolly reasons of the splitting up of the Thursday family.</p>
<p>Joan merely inserts ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in the appropriate intervals of his background chatter. After a few minutes, she merely hopes that she isn’t agreeing on the appropriateness of drowning kittens or of eating oysters with strawberry cream on the side. This incessant stream grates on her nerves and she begins to understand why some people suddenly go berserk and murder their nosy neighbours with the proverbial blunt object.</p>
<p>When she reaches Morse’s building, she stays for a few minutes at the head of the stairs, considering her options. Should she knock then barge into the flat, pushing her advantage? Should she give him an answer to his proposal while still on his doorstep and improvise from there on? What if he doesn’t open his door?</p>
<p>‘<i>Improvising is good</i>,’ she advises herself. With Morse, there’s no point in chasing rainbows. Grab the moment, that’s what she should do.</p>
<p>However, her knock on his door isn’t very confident.</p>
<p>It opens cautiously, then more widely when Morse sees who’s standing outside. He doesn’t release his grip on the door frame, though, as if letting go would have dire consequences.</p>
<p>Joan peers at him. Downing of alcohol appears to be Morse’s idea of dulling the pain of his leg. From his slightly glassy eyes, he isn’t too far gone but no one could say that he’s stark sober, either. His wrinkled shirt hasn’t seen an iron for a long time, and his hair’s standing on end. Joan has to fold her hands harder over her handbag so she doesn’t yield to the impulse of smoothing the wildest waves down for him.</p>
<p>Morse takes a hesitant step back and lets her in. Joan’s legs aren’t so steady either. A ‘What are you doing here?’ left unsaid, hovers heavily between them.</p>
<p>‘Err…Hello, Morse,’ Joan offers by way of breaking the ice.</p>
<p>‘Joan… Do you want to come in?’ he says with diffident politeness.</p>
<p>Still grasping at straws, she accepts the reluctant invitation, preceding him into the main room.</p>
<p>It’s even more depressing than before. Where it was cluttered with debris, it is now almost bare, the light cast by the lampshades disclosing mostly empty shelves. The curtains are closed shut, and the yellowish artificial light gives the flat a cloistered, artificial look. Not a haven, but a cell. Whether it’s the prison kind or the monk kind is still to be asserted.</p>
<p>Nothing has been done to replace the stolen record player and radio. Morse is left with his books and his whisky as succours, the former browsed while he imbibes the latter, as a nearly empty glass, the half-filled whisky bottle and opened book disclose. A sorry method to dull his pain.</p>
<p>Before it goes any further, Joan swiftly crosses the room, snatches the phone and unhooks the receiver, with a defiant look back at her confused boyfriend.</p>
<p>‘There! No more interruptions!’ she says with relish.</p>
<p>Something like hope crosses Morse’s face as he watches her impetuous gesture. Yet, he waits patiently for her to explain the reason of her visit.</p>
<p>‘May I sit?’ she asks, so he may also do it and relieve his still fragile leg.</p>
<p>He gestures vaguely to the armchair where he was probably lounging, but Joan drags a chair closer to the coffee table. She sits carefully on the edge, leaning forward. He follows suit, as mutely as before, settling on the armchair. The table between them feels like the whole length of the Siberian wastes, and as chilling.</p>
<p>This dance of well-bred graciousness has given her a few precious seconds respite. However, Joan can’t delay anymore; she has to take the plunge. Surreptitiously wiping her sweating hands on her knees, and inhaling deeply, she begins innocuously enough.</p>
<p>‘I’ve been thinking…’ she starts, stopping suddenly with an involuntary grin, as consciousness of her unconscious parroting of Morse’s previous words bursts upon her.</p>
<p>A tell-tale twitching in his mouth speaks louder than his words would. His eyes are boring upon her, making her voice catch.</p>
<p>‘I’ve been—thinking,’ Joan commences again, her voice uneven. ‘And—I prefer to be afraid for you <i>with</i> you…than without you.’</p>
<p>She halts, scanning his face. ‘So—the answer’s “yes.” If you still want me—that is…’</p>
<p>
  <i>What a dimwit she is! She should tell him—she should have spoken of love, not of fears—she should have unveiled all the things she imagined telling him in the secrecy of night, when alone in her bed—she should—</i>
</p>
<p>Her train of thoughts stops suddenly when Morse clumsily gets up.</p>
<p>A second later, she mirrors his movement. However, she stays rooted on the spot, catching at the back of her chair for support, all flushed and jittery. She feels hot and cold at the same time; it makes her tingle all down the back of her neck. Her legs feel rubbery, as if her expectation of his reaction made her knees tangled.</p>
<p>He has to take the first faltering step towards her, his limp even more pronounced, before blood flows through her again, pumped by her fast-beating heart.</p>
<p>With a small inarticulate cry, Joan flings herself into his outstretched arms, barely avoiding casting their calves against the coffee table with her impetus. Her hands grope for his reality, find the warmth of his chest, and she snuggles against Morse with a tiny happy sigh. His arms tighten about her, steady and comforting; she belongs right here, she knows she does. She raises her face to his. When his cheek brushes hers, tears spread over both their skins, so she cannot tell if it’s his or hers.</p>
<p>All she wants is to kiss the sorrow from his eyes and the lingering sadness from his lips. She wants to be there for him in all the ways that count; to love him, to cherish him and to protect him as long as he’ll want her.</p>
<p>Words take shape in Joan's ear. ‘I—love—you.’ They sound over and over, filtering into her consciousness and swelling up into existence—loud—louder—brighter, until they take a rainbow-coloured substance of their own.</p>
<p>Endeavour’s voice. Endeavour’s breath caressing her cheek.</p>
<p>If it smacks faintly of whisky, she reflects fleetingly that she’ll find a way to curb his alcohol intake. But surely, if she makes him happy, frightfully happy, he’ll no longer have to turn to it?</p>
<p>‘I love you,’ she answers breathlessly, the reality of his declaration morphing into an intense wave of bliss.</p>
<p>‘So, what are we waiting for? We’re wasting time,’ he whispers. His voice is jagged, but his eyes laugh at her. And at long last, he kisses her, again and again, and she responds with utter abandon. There’s nothing else in the world but his lips on hers, and his hand tangled in her hair, and his arm holding her so close she’s breathing his breath.</p>
<p>No, nothing. Until she feels his balance shift.</p>
<p>‘Endeavour…’ she says against his lips, slipping reluctantly away. ‘Your poor leg… Got any painkillers?’</p>
<p>He shakes his head. ‘It’s alright,’ he asserts although it’s clearly not the case. He’s leaning more heavily on his left leg and there’s an obvious strain around his mouth.</p>
<p>‘Have you seen a doctor?’</p>
<p><i>Of course, he hasn’t. His idea of proper medicine is aspirin—at the best of times—and booze</i>.</p>
<p>He scowls briefly. ‘It’s nothing.’</p>
<p>‘Nothing? You stood the Queen up, and it’s nothing?’</p>
<p>He looks sheepish for a second. The mood passes quickly. As if encouraged by her easy chiding, he grins widely at her. ‘You won’t hold it against me, surely?’</p>
<p>‘As if I would, Detective Sergeant Morse!’ she grins back. ‘Got you all to myself!’</p>
<p>He stiffens suddenly, and she raises her eyes to his startled face. ‘You didn’t know? About the promotion?’</p>
<p>‘No.’</p>
<p>There is an undercurrent of relief and pride in his answer, but also a strange reluctance.</p>
<p>With a flash of insight, she guesses the reason. It’s as if he resented his promotion ‘for Gallantry,’ while all his daily, ordinary endeavours on behalf of justice for ordinary men and women counted for nought. As if his daily detective works, his intellectual brilliance and his uncompromising ethics had no value, except for an occasional flashy feat—that feat that she’ll know nothing about, if he gets his way.</p>
<p>‘Dad wanted it to surprise you,’ Joan ventures.</p>
<p>‘Probably did,’ he says between suddenly tightened jaws.</p>
<p>He’s turning paler by the second, so there’s no time to consider his sensitivity.</p>
<p>‘Come over here!’ Joan suggests, leading him to the alcove, her arm round his waist. She’s glad she does when he leans heavily on her for the few steps he still has to take.</p>
<p>Once Morse’s seated on his bed, she kneels swiftly at his feet, untying his laces and taking his shoes off. Clearly taken by surprise, he lets her do it, his lips parting for a refusal he can no longer utter.</p>
<p>‘Lie down, will you?’ Joan orders. As she straightens up, she gives him a slight shove on the chest and he falls down backward across the bedspread. ‘You need a proper kip, at least.’</p>
<p>‘Not alone,’ he suggests with a half-smile, as he progresses up the bed, carefully favouring his leg.</p>
<p>Nothing like an engagement to turn a shy bloke into a reckless one. <i>Or a few drinks</i>, suggests the less romantic part of her brain.</p>
<p>‘Alright,’ Joan decides abruptly, blushing a little.</p>
<p><i>Better indulge him</i>. As soon as Endeavour’s asleep, she’ll call Dr. DeBryn. He must know about Morse’s old injury and may give her some good medical advice. The pathologist’s discreet, too, and that’s a definite asset, as she doesn’t want the news of her engagement to Morse making the rounds at the nick before her parents are properly acquainted with it. Still, there’s no doubt in her mind that her Dad already guessed the outcome.</p>
<p>‘Alright,’ she repeats, as she gets down on the bed, flinging off her pumps with her feet.</p>
<p>Endeavour’s arm sneaks around her waist, and he pulls her down to his side. He grins mischievously when she hastily pulls down her dress to cover her thighs, and she doesn’t miss his obviously interested glimpse.</p>
<p>Joan settles on her back, and her head rolls over onto a corner of the pillow. The overhead view doesn’t hold any revelations for her. She remembers every crack in the ceiling and each wrinkle in the wall paper. She could even cartograph them on a blank sheet. She stared at them for hours, before settling to sleep in Morse’s single bed while he turned and shifted awkwardly into the armchair, at the other end of the room.</p>
<p>No, this is no different. But Morse’s nearness changes everything; his thrilling, perilous—exciting nearness.</p>
<p>The bed is so narrow that there’s just enough space for the two of them to lay side by side, arms beside their bodies.</p>
<p>His body warmth slowly spreads up all along her right hip, where their clothes almost brush against each other’s. Not quite a graze, not a real gap either. But a slow awareness of Endeavour’s presence; warm flesh unhurriedly turning into scorching fire, as waves of heat spread from this point of almost contact to all the nerves of her body.</p>
<p>You couldn’t slip a cigarette paper in between. What if…Will they?</p>
<p>As if he were reading her mind, Endeavour says, ‘…but with an unsheathed sword between them.’</p>
<p>She turns her head on the right and almost starts when she realises how close they are to each other. If her hair weren’t pined up in a stylish bun, her curls would slither on Endeavour’s side of the pillow, framing his face. If she turns around on her side, she’ll be decidedly cuddling against him—not a bright idea right now, as she doesn’t want to hurt him inadvertently.</p>
<p>So, she contents herself with feeling for him with her hand. Tentatively, she brushes his side, finds the underside of his wrist and rubs the smooth skin lightly with her fingertips, pouring out all her emotions in her touch.</p>
<p>‘Joan…don’t!’ he rasps, his voice gone fierce.</p>
<p>‘No?’ she teases.</p>
<p>‘Didn’t your mother caution you against playing with matches?’ he says, with a glint in his eyes that she’ll find in retrospect more than a little telling.</p>
<p>‘The fact that I’m laying here with you proves that she didn’t enough!’</p>
<p>Joan settles back on her back, sneaking glances at him from time to time, observing the way his lashes contrast with his skin; how approaching sleep smooths his brow and slows his breathing. When he stops fighting it, his frame relaxes all of a sudden, and he sighs his way into a sounder sleep. </p>
<p>She’s left with the pleasure of detailing his features, the sharp profile with the obstinate nose, the high chiselled cheekbones and the sensual mouth. A pleasure all her own for the next several years. And suddenly, their future takes an additional reality.</p>
<p>Yet, when she’s about to slip out from the bed, he shifts suddenly, reaching out for her. Held captive by a careless leg thrown over hers and a possessive grip, lulled by Endeavour’s regular breathing, Joan lets Morpheus also claim her.</p>
<p><br/>
</p><hr/>
<p><br/>
</p>
<p>In her sleep, Joan tries to roll over and her body suddenly meets nothingness. Hovering precariously near the edge of the mattress, she’d take a sudden plunge towards the carpet if Morse’s arm didn’t snare her waist up at the last second.</p>
<p>‘Huh?’ she mutters, woken up abruptly.</p>
<p>‘Got you!’ reaches her ears as she opens her eyes into Endeavour’s amused ones.</p>
<p>He sets her down safely farther in the firm softness of the mattress, and her arms wind up around his neck. Joan purrs, ‘My hero!’ and bursts out laughing as he colours red. His hold on her doesn’t relax, though.</p>
<p>‘Can’t blame your reflexes… But your bed, ugh!’</p>
<p>Faint lines round his eyes crinkle as he smiles down at her. He settles more comfortably on the bed, without releasing his hold, pulling her down against him. ‘Then, we’ll have to do something about it.’</p>
<p>‘Hm-hm’ is her inarticulate answer as he proceeds to kiss her fully awake.</p>
<p>‘Fancy a long engagement?’ Endeavour asks when he’s done.</p>
<p>‘Not particularly.’</p>
<p>If she must be honest with herself, she doesn’t know how she’ll respect the boundaries he seems dead set on respecting despite his eagerness to hold her, over a long period of time.</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem to be what Endeavour wishes, either. He takes her left hand delicately in his hands, running his forefinger over her ring finger and considers it pensively.</p>
<p>‘I have a ring for you,’ he explains cautiously. ‘If you care for it. But I gave it once before, and—’</p>
<p>So, he was burned, and the branding has suppurated.</p>
<p>‘<i>Oh, Endeavour…</i>’ Joan wants to voice aloud, but wisely keeps silence as his sorry tale unfolds.</p>
<p>The oldest tale in the world, but the hurt isn’t lessened for it, despite the elapsed years. He recounts it, as if still in doubt of his attractiveness, ‘We were engaged to be married and then—we weren’t. The ring… It was in my mother’s family for generations, and—’</p>
<p>‘She returned it?’</p>
<p>‘Yes.’ He heaves a shuddering breath. ‘I sent it back to my great-aunt, for safekeeping. I didn’t think it’d be of any use ever again.’</p>
<p>There is a world of pain under the stark sentences. He goes on, his mouth a thin line. ‘I never thought anyone would—that I’d inflict myself on anyone for long. There, so now you know all my secrets.’</p>
<p>Joan inhales deeply, to drown her anger, and says on that breath, ‘She hurt you. Dreadfully—’ </p>
<p>He says as if he discovered it as he speaks, ‘Yes, but that’s past. It never really mattered at all, because she doesn’t matter.’ His brow furrows as he adds with surprised relief, ‘She never really did. It was the idea of her that mattered. Now—’</p>
<p>Endeavour looks lovingly, lingeringly at her, sees how anxious she feels, and kisses her ring finger. ‘Now, I feel the difference. Anyway… the ring’s set with rubies and a diamond; I hope you’ll like it.’</p>
<p>‘I’ll be honoured to wear it,’ she says, because telling him all what she feels at this moment would be near impossible.</p>
<p>Right on cue, at this precise moment, his stomach growls, and the mood is shattered.</p>
<p>‘When did you last eat?’ Joan asks resignedly. This question will never get old with him, it would seem.</p>
<p>A to-do list takes shape in her head. <i>First, buy a new bed. Second, feed him regularly. Third, stock up a first aid kit. It’ll always come in handy. Fourth,—</i></p>
<p>Fourth will have to wait, as his insistent voice intrudes on her mental checking list.</p>
<p>‘—wool-gathering? Joan? Will a trip to the chippy do?’</p>
<p>‘Yeah.’ She sits up and surveys them with some disbelief. ‘You up to it?’</p>
<p>He nods assent. His short kip seems to have done him a lot of good. His colour is better, and there’s a sparkle in his eyes that Joan hasn’t seen for a fortnight. Sleep is a great restorative…unless she was.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, neither of them is ready for anything more extravagant than some fish and chips. They both need a good hair combing—her once elegant bun resembles a bird nest, hairpins sticking out in all directions—and some ironing of their clothes wouldn’t be remiss, either.</p>
<p>Anyone not privy to their innocent sharing of Endeavour’s bed would swear they were rolling in the hay…without a wisp of straw in sight.</p>
<p>Thinking about it reminds her of the weirdly Arcadian Bramford and of Mrs. Chattox. </p>
<p>The last card was ‘<i>The World</i>’. Did she err in refusing to know about it? After all, Joan did make the right choice, and perhaps, it might well be that Mrs. Chattox’s Tarot reading had some influence on the outcome. <i>Who knows?</i></p>
<p>
  <i>Who really knows why things turn out the way they do?</i>
</p>
<p>So, Joan asks Endeavour, ‘Do you really know something about Tarot cards?’</p>
<p>In the process of tying his laces, he straightens up with a curious tilt on his eyebrows. ‘Some. They’re well known archetypes, forged along the years.’</p>
<p>‘What does “<i>The World</i>” mean?’</p>
<p>‘“<i>The World</i>”? It’s a symbol of happiness and a search for balance and inner peace. The figure in the mandorla and the four Evangelists are—’ Seeing that the ins and outs of that specific iconography don’t hold her attention, Endeavour’s voice trails away. ‘Why the sudden interest?’</p>
<p>‘Ask me some other time,’ she replies, and as she draws him towards her, his eager mouth finds hers and he lets the matter fade away, utterly forgotten.<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    


</p>
  <p>
    <b>The end (for now).</b>
  </p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Some of the basis for the last part was inspired by scenes written by Russell Lewis and edited out of the episode. (The transcript can be read <a href="http://dmbarcroft.com/the-endeavour-interviews-2018-russell-lewis-part-iv/">here</a>.)<br/><br/><b>So, what do you think of this finale? I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts, opinions, constructive criticism, and all! Thank you very much for reading this far!</b></p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I’m amazed and very very moved by your enthusiastic reception! Again, this means more than I’m able to say. The only thing I can write is ‘<b>Thank you</b>,’ but do know that it is deeply felt and a wonderful encouragement to continue go on in this wonderful fandom. You are truly awesome and generous readers!<br/><br/>For those wondering what will happen to this AU!Morse and his AU!fiancée, there <i>will be</i> a sequel to this fic. It’s already written; however, due to present circumstances, it might take a while before my awesome and courageous Beta has the time and opportunity to tackle this 61 K words monster of an original case fic…</p></blockquote></div></div>
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